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REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MISS.), CHAIRMAN REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CALIF.) REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CALIF.) REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CALIF.) REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FLA.) REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD.) REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA.) REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WYO.) REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-ILL.)

BENNIE THOMPSON: The Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol will be in order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. Pursuant to House Deposition Authority Regulation 10, the chair announces the committee’s approval to release the deposition material presented during today’s hearing.

Good morning. Last week, the Select Committee laid out a preview of our initial findings about the conspiracy overseen and directed by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power, a scheme unprecedented in American history. My colleagues and I don’t want to spend time talking about ourselves during these hearings, but as someone who’s run for office a few times, I can tell you at the end of a campaign it all comes down to the numbers.

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The numbers tell you the winner and the loser. For the most part, the numbers don’t lie. But if something doesn’t add up with the numbers, you go to court to get resolution, and that’s the end of the line. We accept those results. That’s what it means to respect the rule of law. That’s what it means to seek elective office in our democracy.

Because those numbers aren’t just numbers, they are votes. They’re your votes. They are the will and the voice of the people. And the very least we should expect from any person seeking a position of public trust is the acceptance of the will of the people, win or lose. Donald Trump didn’t. He didn’t have the numbers.

He went to court. He still didn’t have the numbers. He lost, but he betrayed the trust of the American people. He ignored the will of the voters. He lied to his supporters and the country, and he tried to remain in office after the people had voted him out and the courts upheld the will of the people. This morning, we’ll tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election and knew he lost an election and, as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy, an attack on the American people by trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy, and in doing so, lit the fuse that led to the horrific violence of January 6th, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, sent by Donald Trump to stop the transfer of power.

Today, my colleague from California, Ms. Lofgren, and our witnesses will detail the select committee’s findings on these matters, but first I will recognize our distinguished vice chair, Ms. Cheney of Wyoming, for any opening statement she’d care to offer.

LIZ CHENEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Last week, as the chairman noted, our committee began outlining a seven part plan overseen by President Trump to overturn the 2020 election. Today we will begin looking at the initial part of that plan, President Trump’s effort to convince millions of Americans that the election was stolen from him by overwhelming fraud.

A federal court has already reviewed elements of the committee’s evidence on this point and said this, “In the months following the election, numerous credible sources, from the president’s inner circle to agency leadership and statisticians, informed of President Trump and Dr. Eastman that there was no evidence of election fraud” sufficient to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The court’s opinion methodically documents each of the principal reasons for that conclusion, and I would urge all those watching to read it. Today we will begin to show the American people some of our evidence. Today you will hear much more from former attorney general Bill Barr’s recorded testimony, and you will hear in greater detail what others in the department told President Trump, that his claims of election fraud were nonsense.

You will also hear much more from President Trump’s own campaign experts, who had also concluded that his fraud claims could not be supported. Let me focus briefly on just three points now. First, you will hear firsthand testimony that the president’s campaign advisers urged him to await the counting of votes and not to declare victory on election night.

The president understood, even before the election, that many more Biden voters had voted by mail because President Trump ignored the advice of his campaign experts and told his supporters only to vote in person. Donald Trump knew before the election that the counting of those mail in ballots in several states would not begin until late in the day and would not be complete for multiple days.

This was expected, reported, and widely known. You will also hear testimony that President Trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani to just claim he won and insist that the vote counting stop, to falsely claim everything was fraudulent.

He falsely told the American people that the election was not legitimate, in his words, “a major fraud.” Millions of Americans believed him. Second, pay attention to what Donald Trump and his legal team said repeatedly about Dominion voting machines, far flung conspiracies with a deceased Venezuelan communist allegedly pulling the strings.

This was, “complete nonsense,” as Bill Barr said. President Trump’s own campaign advisers, his Department of Justice, and his cybersecurity experts all told him the same thing. Here, for example, is White House lawyer Eric Herschmann. His view was shared by many of the Trump team whom we interviewed.

[Begin videotape] ERIC HERSCHMANN: I thought the Dominion stuff was — I never saw any evidence whatsoever to sustain those allegations. [End videotape]

LIZ CHENEY: And third, as Mike Pence’s staff started to get a sense for what Donald Trump had planned for January 6th, they called the campaign experts to give them a briefing on election fraud and all the other election claims. On January 2nd, the general counsel of the Trump campaign, Matthew Morgan, this is the campaign’s chief lawyer, summarized what the campaign had concluded weeks earlier, that none of the arguments about fraud or anything else could actually change the outcome of the election.

[Begin videotape] MATTHEW MORGAN: Generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud maladministration, abuse, or irregularities, if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative. And I think everyone’s assessment in the room, at least among the staff, Marc Short, myself, and Greg Jacob, was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative. [End videotape]

LIZ CHENEY: As is obvious, this was before the attack on the Capitol. The Trump campaign legal team knew there was no legitimate argument, fraud, irregularities, or anything, to overturn the election, and yet President Trump went ahead with his plans for January 6th anyway. Mr. Chairman, hundreds of our countrymen have faced criminal charges.

Many are serving criminal sentences because they believed what Donald Trump said about the election and they acted on it. They came to Washington, DC at his request. They marched on the Capitol at his request, and hundreds of them besieged and invaded the building at the heart of our constitutional republic.

As one conservative editorial board put it recently, “Mr. Trump betrayed his supporters by conning them on January 6th, and he is still doing it.” Another conservative editorial board that has long supported President Trump said last week Donald Trump “won’t stop insisting that the 2020 — that 2020 was stolen, even though he has offered no proof that that is true.” And this: Donald Trump now “clings to more fantastical theories, such as Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked 2000 Mules, even as recounts in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin confirm Trump lost.” Those are the correct conclusions to draw from the evidence gathered by this committee.

We have much more evidence to show the American people on this point than we can reasonably show in one hearing, but today we will begin. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Without objection — without objection, the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, for an opening statement.

ZOE LOFGREN: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. In our opening hearing, we gave an overview of our investigation into the January 6th attack. The plot to overthrow the election was complex and had many parts, which we’ll explore in remaining hearings, but today we examine the false narrative that the 2020 election was “stolen.” Former President Trump’s plan to overturn the election relied on a sustained effort to deceive millions of Americans with knowingly false claims of election fraud.

All elements of the plot relied on convincing his supporters about these false claims. Today we’ll demonstrate the 2020 election was not stolen. The American people elected President Joe Biden. We’ll present evidence that Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud were false, that he and his closest advisers knew those claims were false, but they continued to peddle them anyway right up until the moments before a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol.

We’ll also show that the Trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters, who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts, but the Trump campaign didn’t use the money for that. The Big Lie was also a big rip off. The former president laid the groundwork for these false claims well in advance of the election.

As early as April 2020, Mr. Trump claimed that the only way he could lose an election would be as a result of fraud.

[Begin videotape] DONALD TRUMP: You know the things with bundling and all of the things that are happening with votes by mail where thousands of votes are gathered. And I’m not going to say which party does it, but thousands of votes are gathered and they come in and they’re dumped in a location. And then all of a sudden, you lose elections that you think you’re going to win.

The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. To remember that. It’s the only way we’re going to lose this election. This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen. Did you see what’s going on? Take a look at West Virginia. Mailmen selling the ballots. They’re being sold.

They’re being dumped in rivers. This is a horrible thing for our country.

JOE BIDEN: There is no —

DONALD TRUMP: This is not —

JOE BIDEN: There is no evidence of that.

DONALD TRUMP: This is not going to end well. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Mr. Trump decided even before the election that regardless of the facts and the truth, if he lost the election, he would claim it was rigged. Mr. Trump was right about one thing. It did not end well. On election night, Mr. Trump claimed even before the votes were counted that his loss was a result of fraud.

Now Thursday, we had testimony from Attorney General Barr about the Department of Justice investigation of Mr. Trump’s fraud claims. Barr told Trump directly that his claims were BS. Yet, after hearing the truth and that warning from the AG, Mr. Trump continued to peddle the false claims of fraud. You’ll hear detailed testimony from Attorney General Barr describing the various election fraud claims the Department of Justice investigated.

He’ll tell you how he told Mr. Trump repeatedly that there was no merit to those claims. Mr. Barr will tell us that Mr. Trump’s election night claims of fraud were made without regard to the truth and before it was even possible to look for evidence of fraud. Attorney General Barr wasn’t alone. You will see and hear today other Department of Justice officials and senior advisers to Mr. Trump that they told him the claims he was making were not supported by evidence.

The election fraud claims were false. Mr. Trump’s closest advisers knew it. Mr. Trump knew it. That didn’t stop him from pushing the false claims and urging his supporters to quote, “fight like hell” to quote, “take back their country”. After he lost the election, various legal challenges were made. You’ll hear testimony today from a renowned Republican election litigation lawyer who explained the normal process by which candidates challenge an election.

Rather than accept the results of the election and the decisions of the courts, Mr. Trump pursued a different strategy. He tried to convince the American people the election had been stolen. Many of his supporters believed him and many still believe him today. The attack on January 6th was a direct and predictable result of Mr. Trump’s decision to use false claims of election fraud to overturn the election and to cling to power.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you very much. I now welcome our first witness. We’re joined today by former Fox News politics editor, Chris Stirewalt; Bill Stepien, President Trump’s former campaign manager was subpoenaed to be here and was in Washington this morning prepared to testify, Kevin Marino, Mr. Stepien’s attorney is here with us today.

Thank you, Mr. Marino for coming. And he was advised — he has advised us that Mr. Stepien’s wife went into labor this morning. Mr. Stepien unexpectedly had to travel to be with his wife and we wish him the best. Due to the depth and rigor of our investigation with several hours of Mrs. Stepien’s testimony from when we interviewed him in February and we will be presenting that testimony today.

I’ll now swear in our witness. The witness will please stand and raise his right hand. Do you swear or affirm on the penalty of perjury that the testimony you’re about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God.

UNKNOWN: [off-mic]

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you. You may be seated. Let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. I now recognize myself for questions. I want to start by showing a video that tells the story of what was going on in the Trump White House on election night in November of 2020.

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: Do you remember where you were on the night of the election November the third?

IVANKA TRUMP: I was at the White House.

UNKNOWN: Do you know where specifically over the course of that night you spent your time within the White House?

IVANKA TRUMP: There was an event that was organized in the residence. So I moved between the residence, a room sort of off the residence where some family members were.

UNKNOWN: I take it, the President was upstairs in the residence?

JARED KUSHNER: He was upstairs. I was — we were kind of on the first floor, so not upstairs we were with — mostly with Ivanka and her brothers and a couple other people who’d be coming in and out.

UNKNOWN: Can you just describe the atmosphere? What were people expecting that night when you got to the White House?

JASON MILLER: I think that there was typically, for people who show up there on election night to be a self-select more positive environment. I think people were a little bit nervous not knowing what was going to happen with the red wave or the red mirage as the debate was being carried out.

UNKNOWN: The Fox News decision desk is calling Arizona for Joe Biden. That is a big get for the Biden campaign. Arizona is called. Do you remember that?

BILL STEPIEN: I do.

UNKNOWN: What do you remember happening — where you were when Arizona was called?

BILL STEPIEN: I — there was surprise at the call.

UNKNOWN: Who is surprised?

BILL STEPIEN: Most — most everyone in the room.

UNKNOWN: Were you being one of them?

BILL STEPIEN: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Did that shift the atmosphere or the attitude in the White House?

JASON MILLER: Completely.

UNKNOWN: How so? Can you describe that?

JASON MILLER: Because Fox News was the first one to go out and say that.

UNKNOWN: And so was it anger kind of directed towards Fox News for making a call more so than a disappointment that maybe the campaign lost Arizona?

JASON MILLER: All of the above.

UNKNOWN: So both? Anger and disappointment?

JASON MILLER: Both disappointed with Fox and concerned that maybe our data or our numbers weren’t accurate.

UNKNOWN: Were you in the White House residence during the sort of past midnight into the early morning hours of November 4th?

RUDY GIULIANI: Yes, I’m sure it — it went over beyond midnight. Yes.

UNKNOWN: Do you remember Rudy Giuliani being at the White House on election night and into the early hours the next morning?

BILL STEPIEN: I do.

UNKNOWN: What do you remember about when he came?

BILL STEPIEN: He — he was — there were — I had heard that he was upstairs, you know, in that aforementioned reception area. And he was looking to talk to the President. And it was suggested instead that he’d come talk to several of us down off the map room.

UNKNOWN: You said that Mr. — you had heard that Mr. Giuliani wanted to talk to the President and then he was directed your way. Did you end up talking to Mr. Giuliani when he was directed [inaudible] ?

BILL STEPIEN: I did. I did.

UNKNOWN: What was that conversation?

BILL STEPIEN: A lot of conversations were directed my way. A few of us, myself, Jason Miller, Justin Clarke, Mark Meadows, gathered in a room off the map room to — to listen to whatever Rudy presumably wanted to say to the President.

UNKNOWN: Was there anyone in that conversation who in your observation had had too much to drink?

JASON MILLER: Like — Mayor Giuliani.

UNKNOWN: Tell me more about that? What was your observation about his potential intoxication during that — that discussion about what the President should say when he addressed the nation on election night?

JASON MILLER: And the mayor was definitely intoxicated, but I do not know his level of tox — intoxication when he spoke with the President, for example.

UNKNOWN: Were you part of any discussions with the people I mentioned, Mr. Stepien, Mr. Meadows, or anyone else about whether the President should make any sort of speech on election night?

RUDY GIULIANI: I mean, I spoke to the President. They may have been present, but the President — spoke to the President several times that night.

JASON MILLER: There are suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we won it outright.

BILL STEPIEN: It was far too early to be making any calls like that. Ballots — ballots were still being counted. Ballots were still going to be counted for days. And it was far too early to be making any proclamation like that.

JASON MILLER: I remember saying that I — to the best of my memory, and I was saying that we should not go and declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers.

UNKNOWN: Okay. Can you be more specific about that conversation? In particular, what Mayor Giuliani said your response and then anybody else in the room’s response?

JASON MILLER: I think effectively, Mayor Giuliani was saying we want it. They’re stealing it from us. Where’d all the votes come from? We need to go say that we won. And essentially to anyone who didn’t agree with that position was being weak.

UNKNOWN: What was your view at the time as to what he should or shouldn’t say?

IVANKA TRUMP: I don’t know that I had a firm view as to what he should say in that circumstance. The results were still being counted. It was becoming clear that the race would not be called on election night.

BILL STEPIEN: My belief, my recommendation was to say that votes are still being counted. It’s too early to — to tell. Too early to call the race. But, you know, we are proud of the race we — we run — we ran and, you know, we think — we think we’re in a — in good position. And we’ll have more to say about this, you know, the next day or the next day whenever we had something to say.

UNKNOWN: And did anybody who is a part of that conversation disagree with your message?

BILL STEPIEN: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Who is that?

BILL STEPIEN: The President agreed with that. I don’t recall the particular words. He thought I was wrong. He told me so. And, you know, that they were going to, you know, go in it — he was going — to go in a different direction.

DONALD TRUMP: This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. [applause] [End videotape]

BENNIE THOMPSON: Mr. Stirewalt, did President Trump have any basis to declare victory on November 4th, 2020?

CHRIS STIREWALT: [off-mic]

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you. Mr. Stepien also testified that President Trump had no basis for declaring victory at that point in time.

[Begin videotape] BILL STEPIEN: By my belief, my recommendation was to say that votes are still being counted. It’s too early to tell. Too early to call the race. But, you know, we are proud of the race we — we run — we ran and we think — we think we’re in a in good position. And we’ll have more to say about this, you know, the next day or the next day whenever we had something to say. [End videotape]

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you. Mr. Stirewalt, after the votes were counted who won the presidential election of 2020?

CHRIS STIREWALT: Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. of the great state of Delaware.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you. That’s the bottom line. We had an election. Mr. Trump lost, but he refused to accept the results of the democratic process. Pursuant to Section 5c8 of House Resolution 503, I now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren for questions.

ZOE LOFGREN: Well, thank — thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Stirewalt. I’d like you to explain a term that was thrown around a lot during the election and that’s the so-called red mirage. What does that mean?

CHRIS STIREWALT: So in the 40 or 50 years, let’s say, that Americans have increasingly chosen to vote by mail or early or absentee Democrats prefer that method of voting more than Republicans do.

So basically in every election, Republicans win Election Day and Democrats win the early vote, and then you wait and start counting. And it depends on which ones you count first, but usually it’s Election Day votes that get counted first. And you see the Republicans shoot ahead. And then the process of — of bailing and binding and unbinding all those mail in votes in some states like Pennsylvania refused to count the votes first.

So you have to wait for all of that to come in. So in every election and certainly a national election, you expect to see the Republican with a lead, but it’s not really a lead. When you put together a jigsaw puzzle, it doesn’t matter which piece you put in first, it ends up with the same image. So for us, who cares?

But that’s because no candidate had ever tried to avail themselves of this quirk in the election counting system. We had gone to pains — and I’m proud of the pains we went to — to make sure that we were informing viewers that this was going to happen, because the Trump campaign and the President had made it clear that they were going to try to exploit this anomaly.

And we knew it was going to be bigger because the percentage of early votes was higher, right? We went from about 45 percent of the votes being early and absentee to — because of the pandemic that increased by about 50 percent. So we knew it would be longer, we knew it would be more. So we wanted to keep telling viewers, hey, look, the number that you see here is sort of irrelevant because it’s only a small percentage of these votes.

ZOE LOFGREN: So this red mirage, that’s really what you expected to happen on election night.

CHRIS STIREWALT: Happens every time.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Stirewalt. I’d like to play a clip — a clip of Attorney General Bill Barr, who also explains what was expected to happen on election night.

[Begin videotape] WILLIAM BARR: Right out of the box on election night, the President claimed that there was major fraud underway. I mean, this happened as far as I could tell before there was actually any potential of looking at evidence. And it seemed to be based on the dynamic that — that at the end of the evening a lot of Democratic votes came in which changed the vote counts in certain states.

And that seemed to be the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud. And I didn’t think much of that because people had been talking for weeks and everyone understood for weeks that that was going to be what happened on election night. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Mr. Stepien obviously could not be with us today and it’s proper for him to be with his wife as they welcome their child.

But he also had discussions with the President about the red mirage. That is that it would be a long night and that early votes would favor him, but that lots more votes would be counted over the course of the night and the days after. So let’s play clip one from our interview with Mr. Stepien.

[Begin videotape] BILL STEPIEN: I — I recounted back to that conversation with him in which I said — just like I said in 2016 it was going to be a long night. I — I told him in 2020 that, you know, there were — it was going to be a — a process again. As, you know, the early returns are going to be, you know, positive. Then we’re gonna, you know, be watching the returns of — of ballots as, you know, they rolled in thereafter.

UNKNOWN: Isn’t it fair to say you’re trying to present a — a — what you thought would be a realistic picture of what might happen over the course of that night, being election night?

BILL STEPIEN: That night in the days that followed. Yeah. I — I — I always — I always, you know, I always told the President the truth. And, you know I — I, you know, I think he expected that from me. And I told him it was going to be a process. It was going to be, you know — you know, we’re gonna have to wait and see how this turned out. So I — I — just like I did in 2016, I did the same thing in 2020. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: So let’s watch a short clip of President Trump speaking after he received that information from his campaign advisers.

[Begin videotape] DONALD TRUMP: We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: So when former President Trump said that it contradicted what his advisers had warned would happen. We all know that mail in ballots played an important role in the 2020 election. However, President Trump continuously discouraged mail in voting. Mr. Stepien was so concerned about the President’s position on mail in voting that in the summer of 2020 he met with President Trump along with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Let’s play clip four.

[Begin videotape] BILL STEPIEN: Meeting that was had in particular, I invited Kevin McCarthy to join the meeting. He being of like mind on the issue with me in which we made our case for — for why we believed mail in balloting — mail in voting not to be a bad thing for his campaign. But, you know, the — the President’s mind was made up and you understand, you know, how many times to, you know, go to the well on a particular topic.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, I understand. Tell me a little bit more about the argument that you and Mr. McCarthy made to the President in that meeting as to why it wasn’t a bad thing that mail in voting was available.

BILL STEPIEN: Lar — largely two pillars to that argument, both of which I’ve previously mentioned. One, you know, leaving a good deal to chance. Pushing or urging your voters to vote only on Election Day leaves a lot to chance. That’s that’s A. And B, also previously mentioned, the fact that the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, the Republican Party had an advantage of — of grassroots workers and volunteers on the ground that would allow, you know, an — an advantage to enhance return rates of — of ballots that were mailed.

Those were the two pillars of the argument.

UNKNOWN: I see. And what if anything do you recall Representative McCarthy saying during that meeting?

BILL STEPIEN: We were — we were echoing the same argument. I mean, his — his words echoed — echoed mine and vice versa on those — on those two topics. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Mr. Stirewalt, you were at the decision desk at Fox News on election night and you called Arizona early for President Biden, which was controversial. How did you make that call and where did you think the race stood in the early hours of the next day?

CHRIS STIREWALT: Well, it was really controversial to our competitors who we beat so badly by making the correct call first. Our decision desk was the best in the business and I was very proud to be a part of it. Because we had a — we had partnered with The Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago thanks to my colleague and friend, Arnon Mishkin, had built a wonderful device for forecasting the outcomes of elections.

So we had a different set of data than our competitors did. We had more research and we had a better system and we had a great team. So what you’re waiting to see is do the actual votes match up with the expectations in the poll. The real votes are testing the quality of your poll in targeted precincts and in targeted places.

And let me tell you, our poll in Arizona was beautiful, and it was doing just what we wanted it to do. And it was cooking up just right. And at some point — and I forget exactly who — but at some point it became clear that Arizona was getting ready to make a call. So we — around, you know, my boss Bill Sammon said we’re not making any call until everybody says yes, cause that was always our policy: [unanimity]. And you have to understand in this room you have, you know, the — the best.

People from academia, Democrats, Republicans, a broad cross-section of people who had worked together for a decade who are really serious about this stuff. So we knew it would be a consequential call because it was one of five states that really mattered, right? Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona were the ones that we were watching.

We knew it would be significant to call any one of those five, but we already knew Trump’s chances were very small and getting smaller based on what we had seen. So we were able to make the call early. We were able to beat the competition. We looked around the room, everybody says yea, and on we go. And by the time we found out how much everybody was freaking out and losing their minds over this call we were already trying to call the next state.

We had already moved on. We were into Georgia. We were into North Carolina. We were looking at these other states. So we thought it was — we were pleased but not surprised.

ZOE LOFGREN: I see. You know, after the election as of November 7th, in your judgment, what were the chances of President Trump winning the election?

CHRIS STIREWALT: After that point?

ZOE LOFGREN: Yes.

CHRIS STIREWALT: None. I mean, I guess there — you could — you — it’s always possible that you could have, you know, a — a truckload of ballots be found somewhere I suppose. But once you get into this space, you know, ahead of today I thought about what are the largest margins that could ever be overturned by a recount and the normal kind of — the kind of stuff that we heard Mike Pence talking about sounding like a normal Republican that night when he said, you know, we’ll keep every challenge.

Nothing like that. In a recount you’re talking about hundreds of votes. When we think about calling a race, one of the things that we would think about is, is it outside the margin of a recount? And when we think about that margin, we think about in modern history you’re talking about a thousand votes, 1,500 votes at the way, way outside.

Normally you’re talking about hundreds of votes, maybe 300 votes that are going to change. So the idea that through any normal process in any of these states — remember, he had to do it thrice, right? He needed three of these states to change. And in order to do that, I mean, you’re at — you’re at an infin — you’re better off to play the Powerball than to have that come in.

ZOE LOFGREN: On November 7th, the other major news outlets called the race for President Biden. Now, Mr. Stepien told the committee that he thought the odds were, and this is a quote, “Very, very, very bleak,” and held a meeting with the President that same day. Let’s show clip eight, video clip eight.

[Begin videotape] BILL STEPIEN: With each day that wore on, I mean the — the trajectory of the race, you know, on election night Trump ahead in — in many states. And as as that week wore on as the third became the fourth became the fifth and so on and so forth and the vote by mail ballots were tabulated, you know, Trump’s — Trump’s lead, you know, grew more narrow.

And — and in — and in some places Biden surpassed, you know, Trump in — in the vote totals. So as — as the week wore on, as we paid attention to those numbers every single — multiple times a day, you know, internally, you know, I — I was feeling less confident for sure.

UNKNOWN: What was your view on the state of the election at that point?

BILL STEPIEN: You know very, very, very bleak. You know, I — I — I — we — we told him, you know, the group that went over there outlined, you know, my belief in — in — in chances for success at this point. And then we pegged that at, you know, five maybe — maybe 10 percent based on recounts that were — that — that, you know, either were automatically initiated or — or — or could be — could be initiated based on, you know, realistic legal challenges, not all the legal challenges that eventually were pursued. But, you know, it was, you know, my belief is that it was a very, very — I mean, 5 to 10 percent is not a very good optimistic outlook. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Now as President Trump and others continued to claim that the election was stolen, there were lawyers who were a part of the campaign, campaign lawyers, who were responsible for investigating the fraud claims. That includes Alex Cannon, who could not validate the claims that were being made including those being made by the President.

Let’s roll video 15. 13.

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: This is an email. It’s two emails actually. The first is from Alex Cannon to you and Faith McPherson and then you forward that email on to Mark Meadows, Justin Clarke, and Jason Miller, the subject being AZ Federal ID voters. If you look at the original email there it says, “Bill, we completed the AZ analysis you requested.” I assume that’s about Arizona.

And because of the un — the substantial uncertainty surrounding the databases, this is a highly unreliable way to identify ineligible voters. Can you explain the task that you gave to Ms. Cannon for this Arizona analysis?

BILL STEPIEN: Sure. Previously, I described some of my frustration with some of the — the claims that people would throw at President Trump regarding, you know, you know, you need to look at this. You know, this happened in this state or that happened in that state. And it would be, you know — those would flow to us to — to — to look into.

I — I talked about that before I think.

UNKNOWN: Yep.

BILL STEPIEN: You know, this is an example of that. I recall — I recall in Arizona someone had thrown out, I believe this to be the claim, that there were thousands of illegal citizens, people not eligible to vote, kind of cast their ballots in Arizona. Someone had thrown out that claim to President Trump. And with, you know, the margins being as close as they were as previously described, you know, that could potentially matter.

So, this — this wild claim is thrown out, which, you know, on its face didn’t seem, you know, realistic or possible to me. I asked Alex to look at the — you know, the — the claim. And I — I haven’t read his full email, but I recall that the response to that, the reality of that was not illegal citizens voting in the election, I think it was like overseas voters voting in the election. I — I — so, obviously, you know, people who were eligible to vote. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: When these findings were passed up the chain to President Trump, he became frustrated and he replaced the campaign’s legal team. Let’s play clip 14.

[Begin videotape] BILL STEPIEN: You know, I think the president, it was during second week where things like you displayed were occurring, where he was, you know, growing increasingly unhappy with, you know, his team, you know, me less so because I was less involved at this point, but still me; growing increasingly unhappy with Justin Clark. And that — that kind of, you know — you know, paved the way for, you know, Justin to be moved out and Mayor Giuliani be moved in as the person in charge of, you know, the legal side of the campaign and, for all intents and purposes, the campaign at that point. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Now, when Mr. Stepien became campaign manager, he was the second Trump campaign manager for the 2020 race, and there were only about 115 days until Election Day. So, let’s play the video.

[Begin videotape] BILL STEPIEN: I inherited a campaign that was — the day I was hired was, I believe, President Trump’s low point in the 2020 daily average polling against President Biden. It was — it was a campaign at a low point in the polls. It was structurally and fiscally deficient. You know, I — you know, there was a great deal wrong with the campaign in — in — in both of those — in — in both of those areas. So, most of my day was spent fixing what — and I think I took over with 115 days left in the campaign. Most of my time was spent fixing the things that could be fixed with 115 days left in the campaign. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Now, Mr. Stepien has been in the campaign field for a long time, and he worked for lots of different candidates in campaigns. He testified to this committee about his concerns, given the claims that Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell and their team were making publicly. Let’s play a clip 15.

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: Ok. And it was important for you, Mr. Stepien, to sort of pull back just for your own professional reputation. You didn’t want to be associated with some of what you were hearing from the Giuliani team and others that — that sort of stepped in in the wake of your departure.

BILL STEPIEN: I didn’t mind being categorized. There were two groups of them. We called them kind of my team and Rudy’s team. I — I didn’t mind being characterized as being part of Team Normal, as — as reporters, you know, kind of started to do around that point in time. You know, I said, you know, hours ago, early on, that, you know, I’ve — I’ve been doing this for a long time, 25 years, and I’ve spanned, you know, political ideologies from Trump to McCain to Bush to Christie, you know.

And, you know, I can work under a lot of circumstances for a lot of varied, you know, candidates and politicians. But a situation where — and I think along the way I’ve built up a pretty good — I hope a good reputation for being honest and — and professional, and I — I didn’t think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time. So, again, that led to me stepping away. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: So, the president did get rid of Team Normal. And I’d like to play a clip showing that the president found the people he needed to perpetuate his claims of fraud.

[Begin videotape] RUDY GIULIANI: They saw a big truck bringing in 100,000 ballots in garbage cans, in wastepaper baskets, in cardboard boxes, and in shopping baskets. And every single one of them was for Biden, because they were being notified by Smartmatic in Frankfurt that Biden was way behind and they better come up with a lot more ballots.

And we can prove every single thing I just said. If you gave me the paper ballots, I could probably turn around each one of these state. I’m absolutely convinced if you — if you let me examine each one of those ballots, I’d pull out enough that were fraudulent that it would shake the hell out of the country.

SIDNEY POWELL: It can set and run an algorithm, that probably ran all over the country, to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden, which we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm.

I remember that one of the things Mark said at some point was you can’t show an actual vote was flipped, which I found at the time to be a remarkable assertion, because — because you don’t have to have the gun to see the body lying on the floor bleeding out with five bullet holes in it was killed by a gun.

ERIC HERSCHMANN: What they were proposing I thought was nuts. You know, the theory was also completely nuts, right? I mean, it was a combination of Italians and Germans. I mean, different things have been floating around as to who was involved. I remember Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelans. She has an affidavit from somebody who says they wrote a software in and something with the Philippines, just all over the radar.

UNKNOWN: Did you ever share, Mr. Kushner, your view of Mr. Giuliani? Did you ever share your perspective about him with the president?

JARED KUSHNER: I guess yes.

UNKNOWN: Tell me what you said.

JARED KUSHNER: Well, basically not the approach I would take if I was you.

UNKNOWN: Ok. And — and how did he react? How did President Trump react when you shared that view with him?

JARED KUSHNER: Oh, he said, you know, I — I have confidence in Rudy.

MATT MORGAN: I think I had conversations with probably all of our counsel who were signed up to assist on Election Day as they disengaged with the campaign. The general consensus was that the law firms were not comfortable making the arguments that Rudy Giuliani was making publicly. I seem to recall that I had a similar conversation with most all of them.

WILLIAM BARR: I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was b*. And, you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it. And that’s one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Even Sidney Powell, defending herself in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, argued that “no reasonable person would conclude that her statements were truly statements of fact.” Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: I thank the witness for joining us today. The first panel is now dismissed. Without objection, the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last week, we presented the testimony of former Attorney General Bill Barr, who testified before this committee. Today, we present additional evidence, including his testimony that former President Trump started making claims of election fraud immediately after the election and that Barr concluded the claims were untrue.

Now, due to the length of Attorney General Barr’s testimony, we’re only going to include relevant portions at the hearing today. So, let us play the video.

[Begin videotape] WILLIAM BARR: The department, in fact, when we received specific and credible allegations of fraud, made an effort to look into these to satisfy ourselves that they were without merit. And — and I was in the posture of trying to figure out — there was an avalanche of all these allegations of fraud that built up over a number of days.

And it was like playing Whac-A-Mole, because something would come out one day and then the next day it would be another issue. Also, I was influenced by the fact that all the early claims that I understood on — were — were completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation. And so, I — I didn’t consider the quality of claims right out of the box to give me any, you know, feeling that there was really substance here. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: For the — for the first time since the election, the attorney general spoke personally with the president on November 23rd, and this was at the White House. Let’s play the video please.

[Begin videotape]WILLIAM BARR: So, on November 23rd, I — I hadn’t spoken to the president since the election, and, in fact, as I said, since the middle of October roughly. And it was a little — getting awkward because obviously he had lost the election and I hadn’t said anything to him. And so, Cipollone said, you know, I think it’s time you come over here.

And so, I came over to meet with the president in the Oval Office. And — and Meadows were — and Cipollone were there. And the president — and — and this is leading up to this conversation with Kushner. The president said there had been major fraud and that, as soon as the facts were out, the results of the election would be reversed.

And he went on on this for quite a while, as he is prone to do. And then he got to something that I was expecting, which is to say that apparently the Department of Justice doesn’t think that it has a role of looking into these fraud claims. And I said, you know, that has to be the campaign that raises that with the state.

The department doesn’t take sides in elections, and the department is not an extension of — of your legal team. And our role is to investigate fraud. And if — and we’ll look at something if it’s — if it’s specific, credible, and could have affected the outcome of the election. And — and we’re doing that, and it’s just not — they’re not — they’re just not meritorious.

They’re not pan — panning out. And as I walked out of the Oval Office, Jared was there with Dan Scavino, who ran his — ran the president’s social media and who I thought was a reasonable guy, and believe is a reasonable guy. And I said, how long is — how long is he going to carry on with this stolen election stuff?

Where is this going to go? And by that time, Meadows had caught up with me and — leaving the office, and caught up to me and — and said that — he said, look, I — I think that he’s becoming more realistic and knows that there’s a limit to how far he can take this. And then Jared said, you know, yeah, we’re working on this. We’re working on it. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Even after his attorney general told him his claims of election fraud were false, President Trump continued to promote these claims.

[Begin videotape] WILLIAM BARR: I felt that things continued to deteriorate between the 23rd and the weekend of the 29th. And then on November 29th, he appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s show, Sunday Futures, I believe it was. And he said that the department was missing in action.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, no, we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden’s account, and these are glitches. So, they’re not glitches. They’re theft. They’re fraud, absolute fraud. This election was over, and then they did dumps. They call them dumps, big massive dumps in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, and all over.

How the FBI and Department of Justice — I don’t know, maybe they’re involved, but how people are allowed to get away from this stuff — with this stuff is unbelievable. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Now, spurred by what he saw or told The Associated Press on December 1st, that there was no evidence of election fraud, and immediately after Attorney General Barr’s statement went public, Mr. Trump berated and he nearly fired Barr.

ZOE LOFGREN: But Barr persisted telling the President that there was no evidence to support the fraud claims.

[Begin videotape] WILLIAM BARR: This got under my skin, but I also felt it was time for me to say something. So on — I had — so I set up a lunch with the AP reporter, Mike Balsamo, and I told him at lunch — I made the statement that to date we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.

I had a later meeting scheduled at the White House at 3:00 with Meadows. This was previously scheduled. So I knew this was gonna to come up. And I went over there and I told my secretary that I thought I would probably be fired and told not to — to go home. [laughter] — I mean, not to go back to my office, so I said you might have to pack up for me. And so when I got over there, I met with the chief of staff.

He said the President was angry. He didn’t really go — get into the issue of the fraud. And then I went up to Pat Cipollone’s office and we were talking with each other. And word came down that he wanted us both to go to the Oval and the President was as mad as I’ve ever seen him and he was trying to control himself.

And the President said, well, this is, you know, killing me. You didn’t have to say this. You must have said this because you hate Trump. You hate Trump. Then he raised the — the big vote dump as he called it in Detroit. And that, you know, he said people saw boxes coming in to the counting station at all hours of the morning and so forth.

And I explained to him that I — at that point, I knew the exact number of precincts for Detroit. I think it was 630 something. I said, Mr. President, there are 630 precincts in Detroit. And unlike elsewhere in the state, they centralize the counting process. So they’re not counted in each precinct, they’re moved to counting stations.

And so a normal process would involve boxes coming in at all different hours, so there’s nothing — and I said, did anyone point out to you — did all the people complaining about it point out to you, you actually did better in Detroit than you did — you did last time? I mean, there’s no indication of fraud in Detroit.

And I told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public were bull — was b. I mean that the claims of fraud were b And, you know, he was indignant about that. And I reiterated that they’ve wasted a whole month on these claims — on the Dominion voting machines and they were idiotic claims.

And I specifically raised the Dominion voting machines, which I found to be among the most disturbing allegations. Disturbing in the sense that I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations. But they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people — members of the public that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn’t count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense?

And it was being laid out there. And I told them that it was — it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that. And it was doing a great, grave disservice to the country. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Ok. So the very next day, the President released a video rehashing some of the very same claims that his chief law enforcement officer had told him were quote, “nonsense”.

[Begin videotape] DONALD TRUMP: Here’s an example. This is Michigan. At 6:31 in the morning, a vote dump of 149,772 votes came in unexpectedly. We were winning by a lot. That batch was received en hara [ph]. We have a company that’s very suspect. Its name is Dominion. With the turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden. What kind of a system is this? [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Barr again told the President that there was nothing to these claims on December 14th.

[Begin videotape] WILLIAM BARR: When I walked in, sat down, he went off on a monologue saying that there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the Dominion machines and a report had been prepared by a very reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as Allied Security Operations Group. And he held up the report and he had — and then he asked that a copy of it be made for me. And while a copy was being made, he said, you know this is absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged.

The report means that I am going to have a second term. And then he gave me a copy of the report. And as he talked more and more about it, I sat there flipping through the poor report and looking through it. And to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me, didn’t have the credentials of the people involved, but I didn’t see any real qualifications.

And the statements were made very conclusory like this — these machines were designed to, you know, engage in fraud or something to that effect, but I didn’t see any supporting information for it. And I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with — with it — he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.

On the other hand, you know, when I went into this and would, you know, tell him how crazy some of these allegations were. There was never — there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were. And my opinion then and my opinion now is that the election was not stolen by fraud and I haven’t seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that, including the 2,000 Mules movie.

[laughter]

UNKNOWN: [off-mic]

ZOE LOFGREN: So maybe you can assess that 2000 Mules and people are talking about that?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I mean, just in a nutshell, you know, I just think that the GBI was unimpressed with it and I was similarly unimpressed with it because I think if you — because I was holding my fire on that to see what the photographic evidence was because I thought, well, hell, if they have a lot of photographs of the same person dumping a lot of ballots in different boxes, you know, that’s hard to explain.

So I wanted to see what the photographic evidence was, but the cell phone data is singularly unimpressive. I mean it basically, if you take 2 million cell phones and — and figure out where they are physically in a big city like Atlanta or wherever, just by definition you’re going to find many hundreds of them have passed by and spent time in the vicinity of these boxes.

And the premise that, you know, if you go by about, you know, five boxes or whatever it was, you know that that’s a mule is just indefensible. If — by definition you’re going to have a lot — hundreds of this. I mean when I saw one contractor said, we figured out that our truck alone would account for six cell phone signals.

This was a, you know, a some kind of contractor. And you know our route would take us by these things on a regular basis. So I — but then when the movie came out, you know, I think the photographic evidence and it was completely black — I mean it was — there was a little bit of it, but it was lacking.

You know it didn’t — it didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting. The other thing is people don’t understand is that it’s not clear that even if you can show harvesting that that changes the — or the results of the election. The courts are not going to throw out votes and then figure out what votes were harvested and throw them out.

You’d still — the burden on the challenging party to show that illegal votes were cast, votes were the result of undue influence or bribes or there was really, you know, the person was non compos mentis. But absent that evidence, I just didn’t see courts throwing out votes anyway. I felt that before the election it was possible to talk sense to the President.

And while you sometimes had to engage in a big wrestling match with them, then it was possible to keep things on track. But I was — felt that after the election, we didn’t seem to be listening and I didn’t think it was, you know, that I was inclined not to stay around if he wasn’t listening to advice from me or his other cabinet secretaries. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: So on December 14th, Barr quit. Now the Attorney General wasn’t the only person who told the President that his claims were false. Other officials and close advisers told him the same thing.

[Begin videotape] JEFFREY ROSEN: Rather than try to address a counterfactual or a hypothetical, let me just say, there were instances where the President would say “People are telling me this” or “I heard this” or “I saw on television”, you know, this — this impropriety in Atlanta or Pennsylvania or something. And we were in a position to say our people already looked at that.

And we know that you’re getting bad information. That’s — that’s not correct. It’s been demonstrated to be incorrect from our point of view it had been debunked.

DEREK LYONS: Month and a half or so after the Election Day and at that meeting, you know, various allegations of fraud were discussed and you know Eric and Pat didn’t, you know — told the group, the President included, that none of those allegations had been substantiated to the point where they could be the basis for any litigation challenge to the election. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: President Trump’s own Vice President and his top advisers also knew that there wasn’t evidence to support the claims that the President was making.

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: Anyone else other than Mr. Meadows who asked you about the status, outside of your legal group, you know, Mr. Morgan and the others you mentioned. Anyone else who asked you the status of what you were finding in your assessment of it?

ALEX CANNON: Yes, sir.

UNKNOWN: Who’s that?

ALEX CANNON: Peter Navarro.

UNKNOWN: When did you talk to Mr. Navarro?

ALEX CANNON: Mid-November.

UNKNOWN: Around the same time as Mr. Meadows?

ALEX CANNON: Yes, sir.

UNKNOWN: And tell me about that conversation.

ALEX CANNON: I recall him asking me questions about Dominion. And maybe some other categories of allegations of voter fraud. And I remember telling him that I didn’t believe the Dominion allegations because I thought the hand recount in Georgia would resolve any issues with a technology problem and with Dominion or Dominion flipping votes.

And I mentioned at that time that the CISA, Chris Krebs [ph], had recently released a report saying that the election was secure. And I believe Mr. Navarro accused me of being an agent of the Deep State working with Chris Krebs [Ph] against the President. And I never took another phone call from Mr. Navarro.

UNKNOWN: Anyone else besides Mr. Meadows, Mr. Navarro, Mr. Hershman that you had discussions with inquiring about what you were finding in your review of the allegations that were pouring in?

ALEX CANNON: I believe I had about a 15 second conversation with the Vice President about it as well.

UNKNOWN: When was that?

ALEX CANNON: During one of the visits to the White House? I don’t know which one. I think it was the first one in November. I was — I had met him briefly at the campaign and he remembered me and saw me. And he asked what I was doing on the campaign and I told him that we were looking into some of the issues related to voter fraud.

And he asked me, I don’t remember his exact words, but he asked me if we were finding anything. And I said that I didn’t believe we were finding it or I was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election. And he — he thanked me. That was our interaction. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: At a later hearing, you’ll hear live testimony from the former acting deputy attorney general of the Department of Justice, Rich Donoghue. But now I’d like to play a portion of his testimony.

[Begin videotape] RICHARD DONOGHUE: I tried to again put this in perspective and to try to put it in very clear terms to the President. And I said something to the effect of sir, we’ve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. We’ve looked at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada.

We’re doing our job. Much of the info you’re getting is false. And then I went into for instance this thing from Michigan this report about 68 percent error rate. Reality is it was only 0.0063 percent error rate, less than one in 15,000. So the President accepted that. He said, Ok, fine, but what about the others?

And again, this gets back to the point that there were so many of these allegations that when you gave him a very direct answer on one of them, he wouldn’t fight us on it, but he would move to another allegation. So then I talked about — a little bit about the Pennsylvania truck driver. This is another allegation that had come up. And this claim was by a truck driver who believed, perhaps honestly, that he had transported an entire tractor trailer truck full of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania.

And this was again out there in the public and discussed and I essentially said, look, we looked at that allegation. We looked at both end, both the people who load the truck and the people unload the truck. And that allegation was not supported by the evidence. Again, he said, Ok. Then he said, no, I didn’t mention that one.

What about the others? And I said, Ok, well, with regard to Georgia, we looked at the tape, we interview the witnesses, there is no suitcase. The President kept fixating on this suitcase that supposedly had fraudulent ballots and that the suitcase was rolled out from under the table. And I said, no, sir, there is no suitcase.

You can watch the video over and over. There is no suitcase. There is a wheeled bin where they carry the ballots and that’s just how they move ballots around that facility. There’s nothing suspicious about that at all. I told him that there was no multiple scanning of the ballots — one the one part of that allegation was that they were taking one ballot and scanning it through three or four or five times to rack up votes presumably for Vice President Biden.

I told him that the video did not support that. Then he went off on double voting the top of the next page. He said dead people are voting. Indians are getting paid to vote. He meant people on Native American reservations. He said there’s lots of fraud going on here. Told him flat out that much of the information he’s getting is false and or just not supported by the evidence. We looked at the allegations, but they don’t pan out. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Mr. Barr and his advisers were not the only ones who determined that the presence allegations regarding Dominion voting machines were false. So Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to include in the record of this hearing reports issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, otherwise known as CISA, that addressed and rejected the claims of manipulation of voting machines in the 2020 election.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Without objection, so ordered.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also ask unanimous consent to include in the record a report prepared by the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee that disprove claims of election fraud in Michigan as well as a statement by 59 of the country’s leading election security scientists noting the absence of any credible evidence that the 2020 election had been altered through a technical compromise and five other reports from organizations and individuals confirming there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election or describing the spread of the former President’s lies.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Without objection, so ordered.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Pursuant to the order of the Committee for the day, the Chair declares the committee in recess for a period of approximately 10 minutes.

BENNIE THOMPSON: The committee will be in order. I now welcome our second panel of witnesses. We’re joined today by BJay Pak, Al Schmidt, and Ben Ginsberg. Mr. Pak is the former United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. Mr. Schmidt is a former city commissioner for the city of Philadelphia, where he served for more than ten years.

Mr. Ginsberg is one of the leading election law attorneys in the country, and has represented Republican presidential candidates in election litigation dating back to 20 — 2000, where he represented George W. Bush in the Bush v Gore litigation. I will now swear in our witnesses. Please stand and raise your right hand.

Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you’re about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Thank you. Please be seated. Let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Pursuant to Section 5C8 of House Resolution 503, I now recognize the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, for questions.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before the break, I think you all heard Mr. Barr and Mr. Donoghue talk about the false claims that Mr. Trump and his supporters made about suitcases of fake ballots in Georgia. We have a witness here today who thoroughly investigated that issue. Mr. Pak, I want to thank you for appearing before us today.

You were appointed by President Trump to serve as the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and you served from 2017 until January of 2021. You were the lead federal prosecutor there and worked for the Department of Justice under then-Attorney General Bill Barr. Now, were you ever asked by Attorney General Barr to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election?

And if so, what were those claims?

BJAY PAK: Thank you, Congressman Lofgren. Thank you for the question. Approximately December 4th, I believe, of 2020, Attorney General Barr and I had a conversation about an unrelated case to the case at issue. At the end of the conversation, Mr. Barr had asked me if I had seen a certain videotape that was being reported in the news, where Mr. Giuliani in a Senate subcommittee hearing that was held the day before, May 3rd, showed a videotape of a — purportedly a security tape at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which is also in Fulton County, in the city of Atlanta.

I’m sorry, city of — yes. At the time, Mr. Barr asked me that — he had made a public statement that he had not seen any widespread election fraud that would question the outcome of the election. And because of the videotape and the serious allegation that Mr. Giuliani was making with respect to the suitcase full of ballots purported in the — the video, he asked me to find out what I could about it because he had envisioned that, in some days after our call, that he was going to go to the White House for a meeting and then that issue might come up. He asked me to make it priority to get to the bottom of — to try to substantiate the allegation made by Mr. Giuliani.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you. I understand the Georgia Secretary of State’s office investigated those State Farm Arena allegations and didn’t find any evidence of fraud. What did you find when your office convected — conducted its own investigation?

BJAY PAK: We found that the suitcase full of ballots, the alleged black suitcase that was being seen pulled from under the table, was actually an — an official lockbox where ballots were kept safe. We found out that there was a mistake in terms of his misunderstanding that they were done counting ballots or tallying ballots for the night, and the — the partisan watchers that was assigned by each of the respective parties were announced and sent home.

But once they realize the mistake, someone from the Secretary of State’s office had indicated that no, no, no, we’re not done for the night, you need to go ahead and — and continue counting. So, once they packed up the lockbox full of ballots, they brought back the official ballot box again and continue to tally the ballots from that — from that — the lock box.

Unfortunately, during the Senate hearing, Mr. Giuliani only played a clip that showed them pulling out the official ballot box from under the table and referring to that as a smoking gun of fraud in — in Fulton County, when in actuality in review of the entire video, it showed that that was actually an official ballot box that was kept underneath the — the tables.

And then they — we saw them pack up because of the announcement that — they thought they were done for the night. And then once the announcement was made that you should continue counting, they brought the ballot box back out and they continued to count. We interviewed — the FBI interviewed the individuals that are depicted in the — the videos that purportedly were double, triple counting of the ballots, and determined that nothing irregular happened in the counting and the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were false.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you very much. I’d like to play again a testimony from Mr. Donoghue, who appeared before the committee before today.

[Begin videotape] LIZ CHENEY: Mr. Donoghue you — we talked at some length about whether or not the White House and the president was informed that the interim report on the results of the investigations, the interviews that have gone on on Fulton County. How would those results have been communicated to the White House, to the president?

RICHARD DONOGHUE: I don’t know how they were initially communicated. I do know that they came up in subsequent conversations with the president, and Dan Rose and I essentially told them we looked into that and it’s just not true.

LIZ CHENEY: Ok. So, he was — he was informed.

RICHARD DONOGHUE: I told the president myself that several times in several conversations, that these allegations about ballots being smuggled in in a suitcase and run through the machine several times, it was not true, that we looked at it. We looked at the video, we interviewed the witnesses, that it was not true. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Mr. Pak, after you left the US Attorney’s Office on January 4th, 2021, did the next US attorney there — I think Mr. Trump’s personal pick, Bobby Christine, did he investigate any remaining claims of fraud? And if so, did he find any evidence that supported the president’s claims of voter fraud?

BJAY PAK: It is my understanding that Mr. Christine continued any investigations that were pending at the time of my departure, but he was unable to find any evidence of fraud that affected the outcome of the election.

ZOE LOFGREN: So, after investigating the president’s and Mr. Giuliani’s claims about voter fraud in Georgia, is it your view today that there was no evidence of widespread fraud sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the election in Georgia?

BJAY PAK: That is correct.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you, Mr. Pak. And I want to thank you also for the service that you’ve given to our country. We appreciate that. Next, I’d like to turn to President Trump’s false allegations about election integrity in Philadelphia. The attorney general discussed these allegations at some length. [Begin videotape]

WILLIAM BARR: You know, the idea the president has repeatedly suggested that there was some kind of outpouring of unexpected votes in inner city areas like Philadelphia as recently as January 13th when he walked off the NPR set. He was asked by the interviewer, you know, what’s — you know, what’s your evidence of fraud?

And he said more people voted in Philadelphia than there were voters. And that was absolute rubbish. The turnout in Philadelphia was in line with the state’s turnout and in fact it was not is as — as impressive as many suburban counties. And there was nothing strange about the Philadelphia turnout. It wasn’t like there was all these unexpected votes that came out in Philadelphia.

So, you know, I think once you actually look at the votes and then if there’s an obvious explanation, he — you know, for example, in Pennsylvania, Trump ran weaker than the Republican ticket generally. He ran weaker than two of the state candidates. He ran weaker than the Congressional delegate — delegation running for federal Congress, and he ran weaker than the — the Republican — I think, I haven’t looked at this recently, but he generally was a weak element on the Republican ticket. So, that does not suggest that the election was stolen by fraud.

UNKNOWN: How about Pennsylvania and Bill McSwain? You were talking with the US attorney in Philadelphia about an alleged discrepancy between the number of absentee ballots issued and the number of ballots cast.

WILLIAM BARR: Right. So, I — I — you know, that was a — a — one of the big ones for a period of time. I think — I think that was raised in Gettysburg by Giuliani or something like that, but it kept on being repeated. And I found it annoying because it didn’t seem that it was right. So, I called — I called McSwain and he got back to me. He said no, the problem is that Mastriano, threw out a — threw out this number.

And what he did was he mixed apples and oranges. He took the number of applications for the Republican primary and he compared it to the number of absentee votes cast in the general election. But once you actually go and look and compare apples to apples, there’s no discrepancy at all. And, you know, that’s one of the — I — I think at some point I covered that with the president.[End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: We have another witness here today who has detailed knowledge about the election process in Philadelphia. Mr. Schmidt, at the time of the 2020 presidential election, you were serving as the only Republican member of Philadelphia’s three member city commission, which is responsible for overseeing elections throughout the city.

Is — is that correct?

AL SCHMIDT: That’s correct, Congressperson.

ZOE LOFGREN: So, President Trump made numerous claims regarding fraudulent voting practices in Philadelphia, including the claim that dead people were voting. In fact, Mr. Giuliani told Pennsylvania state legislators that 8,000 dead people voted in Pennsylvania. You investigated those claims of voter fraud. Can you tell us what you found?

AL SCHMIDT: Not only was there not evidence of 8,000 dead voters voting in Pennsylvania, there wasn’t evidence of eight. We took seriously every case that was referred to us no matter how fantastical, no matter how absurd, and took every one of those seriously including these.

ZOE LOFGREN: As it turns out, even Mr. Trump’s campaign lawyers knew that the dead voter claims weren’t valid.

[Begin videotape] RUDY GIULIANI: I guess the crooks in Philadelphia are disappointed in this. They only submitted 8,021 ballots from dead people — mail in ballots for dead people. Probably easier for dead people to submit mail in ballots than it is to vote in person.

ERIC HERSCHMANN: Rudy was at this stage of his life and the same ability to manage things at this level or not. And obviously, I think Bernie Kerik publicly said it. They never proved the allegations that they were making and they were trying to develop. [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Mr. Schmidt, on November 11th, 2020 President Trump tweeted about you, saying — and here’s a quote, “A guy named Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia commissioner and so-called Republican or RINO, is being used big time by the fake news media to explain how honest things were with respect to the election in Philadelphia.”

“He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption dishonesty. We win.” As a result of that tweet and the CNN interview you gave where you stated the dead voter claims in Pennsylvania were false, you and your staff were subjected to disturbing threats. Can you tell us about that?

AL SCHMIDT: The threats prior to that tweet — and on some level it feels almost silly to talk about a tweet — but we can really see the impact that they have. Because prior to that the threats were pretty general in nature. Corrupt election officials in Philadelphia are going to get what’s coming to them. You’re what the second amendment is for.

You’re walking into the lion’s den. All sorts of things like that. After the President tweeted at me by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific, much more graphic, and included not just me by name but included members of my family by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home.

Just every bit of detail that you could imagine. That was what changed with that tweet.

ZOE LOFGREN: Behind me are redacted threats that you received that you provided to the committee. Now we redacted portions of the text to protect your family. Mr. Schmidt, I — I think I speak for all of my colleagues when I say we are deeply sorry for what you and your loved ones have been through. And I also want to thank you for your service to your country and for standing up for the rule of law.

I want to thank both Mr. Pak and Mr. Schmidt for their service, their testimony, and for standing up for the rule of law. Now I’d like to turn to another subject. The courts in our country provide a legitimate venue for campaigns to challenge what they view as irregular election practices. Now courts have the final say on how the law applies to those challenges.

We have a renowned legal expert here to address the Trump campaign’s activities in court. Mr. Ginsburg, you’ve spent your entire career representing Republicans in election related litigation. You served as the National Council on Republican Presidential Campaigns in 2000, in 2004, and in 2012. You played a key role in the 2000 Florida recount that led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v Gore.

You served as the co-chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. I think it’s fair to say you’re the most prominent Republican lawyer who’s litigated in the election field. Now you’ve analyzed the Trump campaign’s litigation pretty carefully. What’s the, like, normal process for post-election litigation?

How is the Trump campaign’s different from the kinds of post-election litigation you’ve been involved in and know about?

BENJAMIN GINSBERG: In the normal course of things, any campaign on the night of the election and in the days after will do a couple of different things. One is that they’ll analyze precinct results to look for abnormalities in the results, and they’ll send people to those precincts to ask more questions. Secondly, all campaigns will have poll watchers and poll work — workers and observers in the polling place.

And so campaigns will talk to those people if they saw any irregularities that could cause problems in the election. Now the Trump campaign talked pre-election about having 50,000 poll workers. So presumably they did have eyes on the ground in all these places. And so in the normal course of things, a campaign will analyze the reports that come in. Trump campaign had a couple of basic problems however.

Number one, the 2020 election was not close. In 2000, that was 537 and close. In this election the most narrow margin was 10,000 and something in — in Arizona. And you just don’t make up that — those sorts of numbers in recounts. And when the claims of fraud and irregularities were made — you’ve heard very compelling testimony from Mr. Stepien, from Matt Morgan, from Alex Cannon about those claims and how they didn’t believe them. And so that put the Trump campaign on sort of a process of bringing cases without the actual evidence that you have to have and which the process is designed to bring out.

ZOE LOFGREN: So are you aware of any instance in which a court found the Trump campaign’s fraud claims to be credible?

BENJAMIN GINSBERG: No. There was — there was never that instance. In all the cases that were brought, and I’ve looked at the more than 60 that include more than 180 counts. And no, the simple fact is that the Trump campaign did not make its case.

ZOE LOFGREN: The Select Committee has identified 62 post-election lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and his allies between November 4th, 2020 and January 6th, 2021. Those cases resulted in 61 losses and only a single victory which actually didn’t affect the outcome for either candidate. Despite those 61 losses, President Trump and his allies claim that the courts refused to hear them out and as a result they never had their day in court.

Mr. Ginsburg, what do you say about the claims that Mr. Trump wasn’t given an opportunity to provide the evidence they had of voter fraud? Did they in fact — did they have their day in court?

BENJAMIN GINSBERG: They did have their day in court, About half of those cases that you mentioned were dismissed at the procedural stage for a lack of standing. The proper people didn’t bring the case or there wasn’t sufficient evidence and it got dismissed on a motion to dismiss. But in the other, there was discussion of the merits that was — that was contained in the complaints.

And in no instance did a court find that the charges of fraud were real. And it’s also worth noting that even if the Trump campaign complained that it did not have its day in court, there have been post-election reviews in each of the six battleground states that could have made a difference. And those range from the somewhat farcical cyber ninjas case in Arizona to the Michigan Senate report that was mentioned earlier, the hand recount in Georgia that Mr. Pak addressed.

And in each one of those instances there was no credible evidence of fraud produced by the Trump campaign or his supporters.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you. You know, as Mr. Ginsburg has explained, there are no cases where the Trump campaign was able to convince a court that there was widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election. Over and over judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans alike directly refuted this false narr — narrative.

They called out the Trump campaign’s lack of evidence for its claims. And the judges did that even in cases where they could have simply thrown out the lawsuit without writing a word. You can see behind me a few excerpts from the decisions in these 62 cases. The Trump campaign’s lack of evidence was criticized by judges across the political spectrum.

In Pennsylvania, a Trump appointed judge concluded quote, “Charges require specific allegations and proof. We have neither here.” Another Trump appointed judge warned that if cases like these succeeded, quote, “Any disappointed loser in a Presidential election able to hire a team of clever lawyers could flag claimed deviations from election results and cast doubt on election results.” The list goes on and on. Allegations are called, quote, “An amalgamation of theories, conjecture, and speculation.” In another strained legal arguments without merit, unsupported by evidence, derived from wholly unreliable sources, a fundamental and obvious misreading of the constitution.

The rejection of President Trump’s litigation efforts was overwhelming. 22 federal judges appointed by Republican Presidents, including 10 appointed by President Trump himself and at least 24 elected or appointed Republican state judges dismissed the President’s claims. At least 11 lawyers have been referred for disciplinary proceedings due to bad faith and baseless efforts to undermine the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election.

Rudy Giuliani had his license to practice law suspended in New York. And just this week, a newly filed complaint will potentially make his suspension from practicing law in DC permanent. And as we’ve just heard from perhaps the most preeminent Republican election lawyer in recent history, the Trump campaign’s unprecedented effort to overturn its election laws in court was a deeply damaging abuse of the judicial process as stated by US District Court Judge David Carter.

This was quote, “A coup in search of a legal theory.” Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today. The members of the select committee may have additional questions for today’s witnesses and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Without objection, members will be permitted 10 business days to submit statements for the record, including opening remarks and additional questions for the witnesses.

The second panel of witnesses is now dismissed. Without objection, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren for a closing statement. Thank you.

ZOE LOFGREN: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now that we understand the litigation efforts by President Trump and his allies, I’d like to present additional actions taken by the Trump campaign during this time. President Trump continued to push the stolen election narrative even though he and his allies knew that their litigation efforts making the same claim had failed.

It’s worth pointing out that litigation generally does not continue past the safe harbor date of December 14th. But the fact that this litigation went on, well that decision makes more sense when you consider the Trump campaign’s fundraising tactics. Because if the litigation had stopped on December 14th, there would have been no fight to defend the election and no clear path to continue to raise millions of dollars.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I’d ask for unanimous consent to include in the record a video presentation describing how President Trump used the lies he told to raise millions of dollars from the American people. These fundraising schemes were also part of the effort to disseminate the false claims of election fraud.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Without objection so ordered. [Begin videotape]

AMANDA WICK: My name is Amanda Wick and I’m Senior Investigative Counsel at the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. Between Election Day and January 6th, the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to Trump supporters, sometimes as many as 25 a day. The emails claimed the quote, “Leftwing mob was undermining the election,” implored supporters to quote, “Step up to protect the integrity of the election,” and encourage them to quote, “Fight back.” But as the select committee has demonstrated, the Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false.

AMANDA WICK: Yet they continued to promote small dollar donors have e-mails encouraging them to donate to something called the Official Election Defense Fund. The select committee discovered no such fund existed.

HANNA ALLRED: I don’t believe there was actually a fund Called the Election Defense Fund.

UNKNOWN: Is it fair to say that the Election Defense Fund was another — I think we can call that a marketing tactic?

GARY COBY: Yes.

UNKNOWN: And tell us about these fund’s marketing tactics.

GARY COBY: Just the topic matter where money could potentially go to be — how money could potentially be used.

AMANDA WICK: The claims that the election was stolen were so successful President Trump and his allies raised $250 million, nearly $100 million in the first week after the election. On November 9th, 2020, President Trump created a separate entity called the Save America PAC. Most of the money raised went to this newly created PAC, not to election related litigation.

The Select Committee discovered that the Save America PAC made millions of dollars of contributions to pro-Trump organizations, including $1 million to Trump Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows’ charitable foundation, $1 million to the America First Policy Institute, a conservative organization which employs several former Trump administration officials, $204,857 to the Trump Hotel Collection, and over $5 million to Event Strategies Inc, the company that ran President Trump’s January 6th rally on the Ellipse.

DONALD TRUMP: All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing.

AMANDA WICK: The evidence developed by the Select Committee highlights how the Trump campaign aggressively pushed false election claims to fundraise, telling supporters it would be used to fight voter fraud that did not exist. The emails continued through January 6th, even as President Trump spoke on the Ellipse.

UNKNOWN: [inaudible]

AMANDA WICK: 30 minutes after the last fundraising email was sent, the Capitol was breached.

UNKNOWN: [inaudible] [End videotape]

ZOE LOFGREN: Every American is entitled and encouraged to participate in our electoral process. Political fundraising is part of that. Small dollar donors use scarce disposable income to support candidates and causes of their choosing to make their voices heard. And those donors deserve the truth about what those funds will be used for.

Throughout the committee’s investigation, we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for. So not only was there the big lie, there was the big rip off. Donors deserve to know where their funds are really going. They deserve better than what President Trump and his team did.

Mr. Chairman I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: Without objection, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney, for her closing statement.

LIZ CHENEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank all of our witnesses today and I’d also like to in particular wish Mr. Stepien and his family all the best on the arrival of a new baby. Today’s hearing, Mr. Chairman, was very narrowly focused. And in the coming days you will see the committee move on to President Trump’s broader planning for January 6th, including his plan to corrupt the Department of Justice and his detailed planning with lawyer John Eastman to pressure the Vice President, state legislatures, state officials, and others to overturn the election.

Let me leave you today with one clip to preview what you will see in one of our hearings to come. This is the testimony of White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann. John Eastman called Mr. Herschmann the day after January 6th. And here is how that conversation went.

[Begin videotape] ERIC HERSCHMANN: I said to him, are you out of your f-ing mind. I said I could — I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now on, orderly transition. [End videotape]

LIZ CHENEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

BENNIE THOMPSON: At the conclusion of last week’s hearing, we showed you a video of rioters explaining why they had come to Washington on January 6th. It was because Donald Trump told them to be here. Today, we heard about some of the lies Donald Trump embraced and amplified when it became clear he didn’t have the numbers of votes to win the election.

We heard about how officials at different levels of government exploit claims of fraud and found no evidence. Yet, the former President continued to repeat those false claims over and over again. Today, we’ll end things where we did on Thursday, back on January 6th, hearing words of individuals who wanted to stop the transfer of power.

We know they were there because of Donald Trump. Now we hear some of the things they believed. Without objection, into the record a video presentation.

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: I know exactly what’s going on right now. Fake election. They think they’re going to fucking cheat us out of our vote and put communist fucking Biden in office. It ain’t fucking happening today, Biden. You voted? Yes, sir. How’d it go? Voted early, it went well except for the can’t — can’t really trust software — Dominion software all over it. We voted.

And right in the top right hand corner of the Dominion voting machine that we used there was a Wi-Fi symbol with five bars. So that most definitely connected to the internet, without a doubt. So they stole that from us twice. We’re not doing it anymore. We’re not taking it anymore. So we’re standing up. We’re here.

Whatever happens, we’re not laying down again. I’m from Pennsylvania. It didn’t work. It absolutely — It worked — It didn’t work — You voted. No! Trust the system. 200,000 people that weren’t even registered voted. 430,000 votes disappeared from President Trump’s tally. And you can’t stand there and tell me it worked. I don’t want to tell you that what we’re doing is right, but if the election’s being stolen what is it going to take? [End videotape]

BENNIE THOMPSON: The chair requests those in the hearing room remain seated until the Capitol Police have escorted members from the room. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned.

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List of Panel Members:

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MISS.), CHAIRMAN REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CALIF.) REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CALIF.) REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CALIF.) REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FLA.) REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD.) REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA.) REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WYO.) REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-ILL.)

BENNIE THOMPSON: The Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on a United States Capitol will be in order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. Pursuant to House Deposition Authority Regulation 10, the chair announces the committee’s approval to release the deposition material presented during tonight’s hearing. Thanks to everyone watching tonight for sharing part of your evening to learn the facts and causes of the events leading up to and including the violent attack on January 6th, 2021, our democracy, electoral system, and country. I’m Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6th, 2021 committee. I was born, raised, and still live in Bolton, Mississippi, a town with a population of 521, which is midway between Jackson and Vicksburg, Mississippi and the Mississippi River. I’m from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the Klu Klux Klan, and lynching. I’m reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists on January 6th, 2021. 

Over the next few weeks, hopefully you will get to know the other members, my colleagues up here, and me. We represent a diversity of communities from all over the United States, rural areas and cities, East Coast, West Coast and the heartland. All of us have one thing in common. We swore the same oath, that same old that all members of Congress take up on taking office and, afterwards, every two years if they are reelected. We swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The words of the current oath taken by all of us, that nearly every United States government employee takes, have their roots in the Civil War.

Throughout our history, the United States has fought against foreign enemies to preserve our democracy, electoral system, and country. When the United States Capitol was stormed and burned in 1814, foreign enemies were responsible. Afterward, in 1862, when American citizens had taken up arms against this country, Congress adopted a new oath to help make sure no person who had supported the rebellion could hold a position of public trust. Therefore, Congresspersons and United States federal government employees were required for the first time to swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath was put to test on January 6th, 2021. The police officers who held the line that day honored their oath. Many came out of that day bloodied and broken. They still bear those wounds, visible and invisible. They did their duty. They repelled the mob and ended the occupation of the Capitol. They defended the Constitution against domestic enemies so that Congress could return, uphold our own oath, and count your votes to ensure the transfer of power, just as we’ve done for hundreds of years. 

But unlike in 1814, it was domestic enemies of the Constitution who stormed the Capitol and occupied the Capitol, who sought to thwart the will of the people, to stop the transfer of power. And so, they did so at the encouragement of the president of the United States, the president of the United States trying to stop the transfer of power, a precedent that had stood for 220 years, even as our democracy had faced its most difficult test. 

Thinking back again to the Civil War, in the summer of 1864 the president of the United States believed he — he would be doomed to bid — his bid for reelection. He believed his opponent, General George McClellan, would wave the white flag when it came to preserving the union. But even with that grim fate hanging in the balance, President Lincoln was ready to accept the will of the voters, come what may. He made a quiet pledge. He wrote down the words, “This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the president elect. It will be my duty.” 

Lincoln sealed that memo and asked his cabinet secretaries to sign it sight unseen. He asked them to make the same commitment he did, to accept defeat if indeed defeat was the will of the people, to uphold the rule of law, to do what every president who came before him did, and what every president who followed him would do, until Donald Trump. Donald Trump lost the presidential election in 2020. The American people voted him out of office. It was not because of a rigged system. It was not because of voter fraud. Don’t believe me? Hear what his former attorney general had to say about it. I warn those who — watching that this content contains strong language. 

[Begin videotape] WILLIAM BARR: No, just what I — I’ve been — I’ve had — I had three discussions with the president that I can recall. One was on November 23rd, one was on December 1st, and one was on December 14th. And I’ve been through sort of the give and take of those discussions. And in that context, I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit. And, you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it, and that’s one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did. I observed, I think it was on December 1st, that, you know, how can we — you can’t live in a world where — where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that the election — that there was fraud in the election. [End videotape] 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Bill Barr, on Election Day 2020, he was the attorney general of the United States, the top law enforcement official in the country, telling the president exactly what he thought about claims of a stolen election. Donald Trump had his days in court to challenge the results. He was within his rights to seek those judgment in the United States. Law abiding citizens have those tools for pursuing justice. He lost in the courts, just as he did at the ballot box. And in this country, that’s the end of the line. But for Donald Trump, that was only the beginning of what became a sprawling multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election, aimed at throwing out the votes of millions of Americans, your votes, your voice in our democracy, and replacing the will of the American people with his will to remain in power after his term ended. Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, and ultimately Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy. 

Any legal jargon you hear about seditious conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States boils down to this. January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one rioter to put it shortly after January 6th, to overthrow the government. The violence was no accident. It represents seeing Trump’s last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power. 

Now, you may hear those words and think this is just another political attack on Donald Trump by people who don’t like him. That’s not the case. My colleagues and I all wanted an outside independent commission to investigate January 6th, similar to what we had after 9/11. But after first agreeing to the idea, Donald Trump’s allies in Congress put a stop to it. Apparently, they don’t want January 6th investigated at all. And in the last 17 months, many of those same people have tried to whitewash what happened on January 6th, to rewrite history, call it a tourist visit, label it legitimate political discourse. 

Donald Trump and his followers have adopted the words of the songwriter, do you believe me or your lying eyes? We can’t sweep what happened under the rug. The American people deserve answers, so I come before you this evening not as a Democrat, but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution. 

The Constitution doesn’t protect just Democrats or just Republicans. It protects all of us, we, the people. And this scheme was an attempt to undermine the will of the people. 

So, tonight and over the next few weeks, we’re going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day, but our work must do much more than just look backwards. The cause of our democracy remains in danger. The conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. There are those in this audience who thirst for power, but have no love or respect for what makes America great, devotion to the Constitution, allegiance to the rule of law, our shared journey to build a more perfect union. January 6th and the lies that led to insurrection have put two and a half centuries of constitutional democracy at risk. 

The world is watching what we do here. America has long been expected to be a shining city on the hill, a beacon of hope and freedom, a model for others when we are at our best. How can we play that role when our house is in such disorder? We must confront the truth with candor, resolve, and determination. 

We need to show that we are worthy of the gifts that are the birthright of every American. That begins here and it begins now, with a true accounting of what happened and what led to the attack on our Constitution and our democracy. In this moment, when the dangers of our Constitution and our democracy loom large, nothing could be more important. Working alongside the public servants on this dais has been one of the greatest honors of my time in Congress. It’s been a particular privilege to count as a partner in this effort and to count as a friend the gentlewoman from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney. She’s a patriot, a public servant of profound courage, of devotion to her oath and the Constitution. It’s my pleasure to recognize Ms. Cheney for her opening statement. 

LIZ CHENEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me echo those words about the importance of — of bipartisanship and what a tremendous honor it is to work on this committee. Mr. Chairman, at 6:01 p.m. on January 6th, after he spent hours watching a violent mob besiege, attack, and invade our Capitol, Donald Trump tweeted, but he did not condemn the attack. Instead, he justified it. These are the things and events that happen, he said, when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long.

As you will see in the hearings to come, President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol, and I quote, “were doing what they should be doing.” This is what he told his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave. Over a series of hearings in the coming weeks, you will hear testimony, live and on video, from more than half a dozen former White House staff in the Trump administration, all of whom were in the West Wing of the White House on January 6th. You will hear testimony that, “The president did not really want to put anything out calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave.” You will hear that President Trump was yelling and “really angry” at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more. And aware of the rioters’ chants to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea.” Mike Pence “deserves it.” 

LIZ CHENEY: You will hear evidence that President Trump refused for hours to do what his staff and his family and many of his other advisers begged him to do, immediately instruct his supporters to stand down and evacuate the Capitol. Tonight, you will see never before seen footage of the brutal attack on our Capitol. An attack that unfolded while a few blocks away President Trump sat watching television in the dining room next to the Oval Office. 

You will hear audio from the brave police officers battling for their lives and ours, fighting to defend our democracy against a violent mob Donald Trump refused to call off. Tonight and in the weeks to come, you will see evidence of what motivated this violence including directly from those who participated in this attack. You will see video of them explaining what caused them to do it. You will see their posts on social media. We will show you what they have said in federal court. On this point, there is no room for debate. Those who invaded our capital and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them, that the election was stolen and that he was the rightful President. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. You will also hear about plots to commit seditious conspiracy on January 6th, a crime defined in our laws as conspiring to overthrow, put down, or destroy by force the government of the United States or to oppose by force the authority thereof. 

Multiple members of two groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have been charged with this crime for their involvement in the events leading up to and on January 6th. Some have pled guilty. The attack on our Capitol was not a spontaneous riot. Intelligence available before January 6th identified plans to quote, “invade the Capitol, occupy the Capitol, and take other steps to halt Congress’s count of electoral votes that day”. In our hearings to come, we will identify elements of those plans and we will show specifically how a group of Proud Boys led a mob into the Capitol building on January 6th. Tonight, I am going to describe for you some of what our committee has learned and highlight initial findings you will see this month in our hearings. As you hear this, all Americans should keep in fact — in mind this fact. On the morning of January 6th, President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain President of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power. Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven part plan to overturn the Presidential election and prevent the transfer of Presidential power. 

In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan. In our second hearing, you will see that Donald Trump and his advisers knew that he had in fact lost the election. But despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the US population that fraud had stolen the election from him. This was not true. Jason Miller was a senior Trump campaign spokesman. In this clip, Miller describes a call between the Trump campaign’s internal data expert and President Trump a few days after the 2020 election. 

[Begin Videotape] JASON MILLER: I was in the Oval Office and at some point in the conversation Matt Oczkowski, who was the lead data person was brought on and I remember he delivered to the President pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose. UNKNOWN: And that was based, Mr. Miller, on Matt and the data team’s assessment of the sort of county by county, state by state results as reported? JASON MILLER: Correct. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: Alex Cannon was one of President Trump’s campaign lawyers. He previously worked for the Trump Organization. One of his responsibilities was to assess allegations of election fraud in November 2020. Here is one sample of his testimony discussing what he told White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows. 

[Begin Videotape] ALEX CANNON: I remember a call with Mr. Meadows where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding. And if I was finding anything. And I remember sharing with him that we weren’t finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states. UNKNOWN: When was that conversation? ALEX CANNON: Probably in November, mid to late November. I think it was before my child was born. UNKNOWN: And what was Mr. Meadows reaction to that information? ALEX CANNON: I believe the words he used were, so there’s no there there. [End videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: There’s no there there. The Trump campaign’s general counsel, Matt Morgan, gave similar testimony. He explained that all of the fraud allegations and the campaign’s other election arguments taken together and viewed in the best possible light for President Trump could still not change the outcome of the election. President Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, also told Donald Trump his election claims were wrong. 

[Begin Videotape] WILLIAM BARR: Repeatedly told the President in no uncertain terms that I did not see evidence of fraud. And — you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election. And frankly a year and a half later, I haven’t seen anything to change my mind on that. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: Attorney General Barr also told President Trump that his allegations about Dominion voting machines were groundless. 

[Begin Videotape] WILLIAM BARR: I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn’t count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. And it was being laid out there. And I told them that it was — that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that. And it was doing a great, grave disservice to the country. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: But President Trump persisted, repeating the false Dominion allegations in public at least a dozen more times even after his Attorney General told him, they were quote, “complete nonsense”. And after Barr’s resignation on December 23rd, the acting Attorney General who replaced him, Jeff Rosen, and the acting deputy, Richard Donoghue, told President Trump over and over again that the evidence did not support allegations he was making in public. Many of President Trump’s White House staff also recognized that the evidence did not support the claims President Trump was making. This is the President’s daughter commenting on Bill Barr’s statement that the department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election. 

[Begin Videotape] UNKNOWN: How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement? IVANKA TRUMP: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: As you will hear on Monday, the President had every right to litigate his campaign claims, but he ultimately lost more than 60 cases in state and federal courts. The President’s claims in the election cases were so frivolous and unsupported that the President’s lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, not only lost the lawsuits, his license to practice law was suspended. Here is what the court said of Mr. Giuliani. Giuliani communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.

As you will see in great detail in our hearings, President Trump ignored the rulings of our nation’s courts. He ignored his own campaign leadership, his White House staff, many Republican state officials. He ignored the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump invested millions of dollars of campaign funds purposely spreading false information, running ads he knew were false, and convincing millions of Americans that the election was corrupt and that he was the true President. As you will see, this misinformation campaign provoked the violence on January 6th. 

In our third hearing, you will see that President Trump corruptly planned to replace the Attorney General of the United States so the US Justice Department would spread his false stolen election claims. In the days before January 6th, President Trump told his top Justice Department officials quote, “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen”. Senior Justice Department officials, men he had appointed, told him they could not do that because it was not true. So President Trump decided to replace them. He offered Jeff Clark, an environmental lawyer at the Justice Department, the job of acting Attorney General. President Trump wanted Mr. Clark to take a number of steps including sending this letter to Georgia and five other states saying the US Department of Justice had quote, “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election”. This letter is a lie. The Department of Justice had in fact repeatedly told President Trump exactly the opposite, that they had investigated his stolen election allegations and found no credible fraud that could impact the outcome of the election. This letter and others like it would have urged multiple states to withdraw their official and lawful electoral votes for Biden. Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue described Jeff Clark’s letter this way, quote, “this would be a grave step for the department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political, and social ramifications for this country”. The committee agrees with Mr. Donoghue’s assessment. Had Clarke assumed the role of Attorney General in the days before January 6th and issued these letters, the ramifications could indeed have been grave. Mr. Donoghue also said this about Clark’s plan. 

[Begin Videotape] RICHARD DONOGHUE: And I recall toward the end saying what you’re proposing is nothing less than the United States Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a Presidential election. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: In our hearings, you will hear firsthand how the senior leadership of the Department of Justice threatened to resign, how the White House counsel threatened to resign, and how they confronted Donald Trump and Jeff Clark in the Oval Office. The men involved, including Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue were appointed by President Trump. These men honored their oaths of office. They did their duty. And you will hear from them in our hearings. By contrast, Jeff Clark has invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify. Representative Scott Perry, who is also involved in trying to get Clark appointed as Attorney General, has refused to testify here. As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a Presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican Congressmen also sought Presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. In our fourth hearing, we will focus on President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th. Vice President Pence has spoken publicly about this. 

[Begin Videotape] MIKE PENCE: President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American President. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional. You will hear this in great detail from the Vice President’s former general counsel. Witnesses in these hearings will explain how the former Vice President and his staff informed President Trump over and over again that what he was pressuring Mike Pence to do was illegal. As you will hear, President Trump engaged in a relentless effort to pressure Pence, both in private and in public. You will see the evidence of that pressure from multiple witnesses live and on video. Vice President Pence demonstrated his loyalty to Donald Trump consistently over four years, but he knew that he had a higher duty to the United States Constitution. This is testimony from the Vice President’s chief of staff. 

[Begin Videotape] MARC SHORT: That’s why I think the Vice President was proud of his four years of service and he felt like much had been accomplished in those four years. And I think he was proud to have stood beside the President for all that has been done. But I think he ultimately knew that his fidelity to the Constitution was his first and foremost oath. And — and that’s — that’s what he articulated publicly. And I think that that’s what he felt. UNKNOWN: His fidelity to the Constitution was more important than his fidelity to President Trump and his desires — MARC SHORT: — The oath he took. UNKNOWN: Yes. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: You’ll also hear about a lawyer named John Eastman. Mr. Eastman was deeply involved in President Trump’s plans. You’ll hear from former fourth circuit federal judge Michael Luttig, a highly respected leading conservative judge. John Eastman clerked for Judge Luttig. Judge Luttig provided counsel to the Vice President’s team in the days before January 6th. The judge will explain how Eastman quote, “Was wrong at every turn.” And you will see the email exchanges between Eastman and the Vice President’s counsel as the violent attack on Congress was underway. Mr. Jacob said this to miss — Mr. Eastman, “Thanks to your bullshit, we are under siege.” 

You will also see evidence that John Eastman did not actually believe the legal position he was taking. In fact, a month before the 2020 election, Eastman took exactly the opposite view on the same legal issues. In the course of the Select Committee’s work to obtain information from Mr. Eastman, we have had occasion to present evidence to a federal judge. The judge evaluated the facts and he reached the conclusion that President Trump’s efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act illegally by refusing to count electoral votes likely violated two federal criminal statutes. And the judge also said this. If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the court fears January 6th will repeat itself. 

Every American should read what this federal judge has written. The same judge, Judge Carter, issued another decision on Tuesday night just this week indicating that John Eastman and other Trump lawyers knew that their legal arguments had no real chance of success in court. But they relied on those arguments anyway to try to quote, “Overturn a democratic election.” And you will hear that while Congress was under attack on January 6th and the hours following the violence, the Trump legal team in the Willard Hotel war room continued to work to halt the count of electoral votes. 

In our fifth hearing, you will see evidence that President Trump corruptly pressured state legislators and election officials to change election results. You will hear additional details about President Trump’s call to Georgia officials urging them to quote, “Find 11,780 votes,” votes that did not exist. And his efforts to get states to rescind certified electoral slates without factual basis and contrary to law. You will hear new details about the Trump campaign and other Trump associates’ efforts to instruct Republican officials in multiple states to create intentionally false electoral slates and transmit those slates to Congress, to the Vice President, and the National Archives, falsely certifying that Trump won states he actually lost. 

In our final two June hearings, you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them illegally to march on the United States Capitol. While the violence was underway President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol. As we present these initial findings, keep two points in mind. First, our investigation is still ongoing. So what we make public here will not be the complete set of information we will ultimately disclose. And second, the Department of Justice is currently working with cooperating witnesses and has disclosed to date only some of the information it has identified from encrypted communications and other sources. 

On December 18th, 2020, a group including General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others visited the White House. They stayed late into the evening. We know that the group discussed a number of dramatic steps, including having the military seize voting machines and potentially rerun elections. You will also hear that President Trump met with that group alone for a period of time before White House lawyers and other staff discovered the group was there and rushed to intervene. A little more than an hour after Ms. Powell, Mr. Giuliani, General Flynn, and the others finally left the White House, President Trump sent the tweet on the screen now telling people to come to Washington on January 6th. Be there, he instructed them. Will be wild. As you will see, this was a pivotal moment. 

This tweet initiated a chain of events. The tweet led to the planning for what occurred on January 6th, including by the Proud Boys who ultimately led the invasion of the Capitol and the violence on that day. The indictment of a group of Proud Boys alleges that they planned quote, “To oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States.” And according to the Department of Justice, on January 6th, 2021, the defendants directed, mobilized, and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol leading to the dismantling of metal barricades, the destruction of property, the breaching of the Capitol building, and the assaults on law enforcement. Although certain former Trump officials have argued that they did not anticipate violence on January 6th, the evidence suggests otherwise. As you will see in our hearings, the White House was receiving specific reports in the days leading up to January 6th, including during President Trump’s ellipse rally indicating that elements in the crowd were preparing for violence at the Capitol. And on the evening of January 5th, the President’s close adviser Steve Bannon said this on his podcast. 

[Begin Videotape] STEVE BANNON: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: As part of our investigation we will present information about what the White House and other intelligence agencies knew and why the Capitol was not better prepared. But we will not lose sight of the fact that the Capitol Police did not cause the crowd to attack. And we will not blame the violence that day — violence provoked by Donald Trump — on the officers who bravely defended all of us. 

In our final hearing, you will hear a moment by moment account of the hours long attack from more than half a dozen White House staff both live in the hearing room and via videotape testimony. There’s no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed. White House staff urged President Trump to intervene and call off the mob. Here is a document written while the attack was underway by a member of the White House staff advising what the President needed to say. Quote, “Anyone who entered the Capitol without proper authority should leave immediately.” This is exactly what his supporters on Capitol Hill and nationwide were urging the President to do. He would not. You will hear that leaders on Capitol Hill begged the President for help including Republican Leader McCarthy, who was quote, “Scared”, and called multiple members of President Trump’s family after he could not persuade the President himself. 

Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day. And he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and disp — and deploy law enforcement assets. But Vice President Pence did each of those things. For example, here is what General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified to this committee. 

[Begin Videotape] MARK MILLEY: There were two — two or three calls with Vice President Pence. He was very animated and he issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders. There was no question about that. And — and he was — and — and I can give you the exact quotes I guess from some of our records somewhere. But he was very animated, very direct, very firm. And to Secretary Miller, get the military down here. Get the Guard down here, put down this situation, etc.” [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: By contrast here is General Milley’s description of his conversation with President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 6th. 

[Begin Videotape] MARK MILLEY: He said we have — we have to kill the narrative that the Vice President is making all the decisions. We need to establish the narrative that, you know, that the President is still in charge and that things are steady or stable or words to that effect. I immediately interpret that as politics, politics, politics. Red flag for me personally, no action. But I remember it distinctly. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: And you will hear from witnesses how the day played out inside the White House. How multiple White House staff resigned in disgust and how President Trump would not ask his supporters to leave the Capitol. It was only after multiple hours of violence that President Trump finally released a video instructing the riotous mob to leave. And as he did so, he said to them quote, “We love you and you’re very special.” You will also hear that in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, members of the President’s family, White House staff, and others tried to step in to stabilize the situation, quote, “To land the plane before the Presidential transition on January 20th.” You will hear about members of the Trump cabinet discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment and replacing the President of the United States. Multiple members of President Trump’s own cabinet resigned immediately after January 6th. One member of the Cabinet suggested that the remaining Cabinet officers needed to take a more active role in running the White House and the Administration. 

But most emblematic of those days is this exchange of texts between Sean Hannity and former President Trump’s Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Sean Hannity wrote in part: Key now. No more crazy people. No more stolen election talk. Yes, impeachment and 25th Amendment are real, many people will quit. Ms. McEnany responded in part: Love that. That’s the playbook. The White House staff knew that President Trump was willing to entertain and use conspiracy theories to achieve his ends. They knew the President needed to be cut off from all of those who had encouraged him. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone, at least until he left office on January 20th. These are important facts for Congress and the American people to understand fully. 

When a President fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union or worse causes a constitutional crisis, we’re at a moment of maximum danger for our republic. Some in the White House took responsible steps to try to prevent January 6th. Others egged the President on. Others who could have acted refused to do so. In this case, the White House counsel was so concerned about potentially lawless activity that he threatened to resign multiple times. That is exceedingly rare and exceedingly serious. It requires immediate attention, especially when the entire team threatens to resign. However, in the Trump White House, it was not exceedingly rare and it was not treated seriously. This is a clip of Jared Kushner addressing multiple threats by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his team of lawyers to resign in the weeks before January 6th. 

[Begin Videotape] LIZ CHENEY: Jared, are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign? JARED KUSHNER: I — I kind of — like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done. And I know that, you know, he was always to — him and the team were always saying, oh, we’re going to resign. We’re not going to be here if this happens, if that happens. So I kind of took it up to just be whining to be honest with you. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: Whining. There’s a reason why people serving in our government take an oath to the Constitution. As our founding fathers recognized, democracy is fragile. People in positions of public trust are duty bound to defend it to step forward when action is required. In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual or a political party. 

LIZ CHENEY: We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain. Finally, I ask all of our fellow Americans, as you watch our hearings over the coming weeks, please remember what’s at stake. Remember the men and women who have fought and died so that we can live under the rule of law, not the rule of men. I ask you to think of the scene in our Capitol rotunda on the night of January 6th. 

There, in a sacred space in our constitutional republic, the place where our presidents lie in state, watched over by statues of Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant, Eisenhower, Ford, and Reagan, against every wall that night encircling the room, there were SWAT teams, men and women in tactical gear with long guns deployed inside our Capitol building. There in the rotunda, these brave men and women rested beneath paintings depicting the earliest scenes of our republic, including one painted in 1824 depicting George Washington resigning his commission, voluntarily relinquishing power, handing control of the Continental Army back to Congress. With this noble act, Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power, what President Reagan called, nothing less than a miracle. The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president except one. As Americans, we all have a duty to ensure that what happened on January 6th never happens again, to set aside partisan battles, to stand together to perpetuate and preserve our great republic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: As we provide answers to American people about January 6th, it’s important that we remember exactly what took place, that this was no tourist visit to the Capitol. Most of the footage we are about to play has never been seen. The Select Committee obtained it as a part of our investigation. This isn’t easy to watch. I want to warn everyone that this video includes violence and strong language. Without objection, I include in the record a video presentation of the violence of January 6th. 

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: Grab your bullet. Grab your bullet. Grab your bullet. Yeah. Just be aware, be advised there’s probably about 300 Proud Boys. They’re marching eastbound in this 400 block of kind of Independence, actually on the Mall towards the United States Capitol. USA. USA. USA. I am not allowed to say what’s going to happen today, because everyone’s just going to have to watch for themselves. But it’s going to happen. Something’s going to happen, Whose streets? Our streets. Whose streets? Our streets. Whose streets? Our streets. Don’t need to hurt you. We are on your side. Don’t make us go and against you. Must be a brown shirt. Let me stand aside. Pick a side. These are our streets. 20 bucks a pitcher. 

DONALD TRUMP: I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president, and you are the happiest people. Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn’t, that will be a — a sad day for our country, because you’ll never, ever take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. 

UNKNOWN: USA. USA. USA. USA. Cruiser 50, it does look like we’re going to have an ad hoc march stepping off here. There’s a crowd surge heading east. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. We love Trump. 

DONALD TRUMP: Mike Pence, I hope you are going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now. 

UNKNOWN: USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. Get back, lady. Get back, lady. EA 101 priority, we’ve been passed first on Peace Circle, breached the line. We need backup. What are you doing? Guys, what are you doing? Madam Speaker, the vice president and the United States Senate. [Applause] 

Cruiser 50, we’re going to give riot warning [Unintelligible]. We’re going to give riot warning. We’re gonna try and get compliance, but this is now effectively a riot. 1549 hours, declaring it a riot. Cruiser 5 to 50, be advised Capitol Police One advised they’re trying to breach and get to the Capitol. 50, I copy. Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line. 42, we’re about five minutes out. We’re trying to make our way through all this. [Unintelligible] 

Go, go, go, go, go. Cruiser 50, we have a breach of the Capitol, breach of the Capitol from the upper level. Be advised, they are requesting additional resources on the east side, as they have broken into that window and they’re trying to kick it in. 

JIM MCGOVERN: Without objection, the chair declares the House in recess pursuant to clause 12B of Rule One. 

UNKNOWN: Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution giving states a chance certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones, which they were asked to previously certify. The US demands the truth. Bring out Pence. Bring him out. Bring out Pence. Bring him out. Bring out Pence. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. Hang Mike Pence. You pepper sprayed another American. We’ll fight for you. [Unintelligible]

Take it all away. Get him back in. Our house. Our house. Our house. Move, move. Our house. Whose house? Our house. Our house. Get the fuckers. [Unintelligible] We can’t hold this. We’re going to get too many fucking people here. Look at this fucking vantage point. Man, we’re fucked. We are area for the housing members. They’re all walking over now through the tunnel. We need area 4B. House members, they’re all walking over now through the tunnels. Now, now, now. 

We’re trying to hold the upper deck. We are trying to hold the upper deck now. We need to close the doors of the Capitol. I need more support. [Unintelligible] We’ve lost the line. We’ve lost the line. All MPD get back. All MPD pull back up to the upper deck. All MPD pull back to the upper deck ASAP. Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. Conductors or [Unintelligible], be advised that capitol police are going to start moving their resources inside. They’re going to start at the N4 officers first. [Unintelligible] No violence. No violence. [Unintelligible] Reach 208 with the four members, the door’s barricaded. There’s people flooding the hallways outside and we have no way out. If I ask officers still remaining on the House floor in the — on the third floor to use the subways themselves. 

It’s time to evacuate. Then we can secure the members on the other side. Copy? It’s up to us people now, the American people. But what are you ready to do? One more time? What are you ready to do? Whatever it takes. I’ll lay my life down if it takes. Absolutely. That’s why we showed up today. Bring her out here. We’re coming in if you don’t bring her out. Fuck you, you son of a bitch. Bring her out. You back up. Go ahead and try. Get him up. Get him up. Get a medic. Officer down, get him up. Get him up. Get him up. Get him up. USA. USA. USA. USA. [Unintelligible] [Unintelligible] for backup. I need backup. I need backup. Back up. Back up. [Unintelligible] 

DONALD TRUMP: They were peaceful people. These were great people. The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love. The love — the love in the air, I’ve never seen anything like it. [End videotape] 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Pursuant to the order of the committee of tonight, the chair declares the committee in recess for a period of approximately 10 minutes. [Recess] The committee will be in order. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us this evening to share their firsthand accounts of that terrible day. I know that some of the witnesses from our first hearing are in the room with us along with some of the family members, friends, and widows of the officers who lost their lives as a result of the attack. Thank you all for being here for us and the American people. 

Officer Carolyn Edwards has been with the United States Capitol Police since 2017. On January 6th, Officer Edwards was assigned to the first responder unit which serves as the first line of defense at the Capitol complex. She also served as a member of the Civil Disturbance Unit, a special subset of the uniformed division trained to respond to mass demonstration events. Officer Edwards is a graduate of the University of Georgia and currently is working on a Master’s degree in intelligence analysis from Johns Hopkins University. 

Nick Quested is an acclaimed filmmaker who credits include documenting stories from war zones in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. On January 6th Mr. Quested was working on a documentary about quote, “Why Americans are so divided when Americans have so much in common,” end quote. During that day, Mr. Quested interviewed and documented movements of the people around the Capitol, including the first moments of the violence against the Capitol Police and the chaos that en — ensued. I will now swear in our witnesses. The witnesses will please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear and affirm on the penalty of perjury that the testimony you’re about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God? Let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Without objection, the witnesses’ statement will be included in the record. 

Pursuant to Section 5c8 of House Resolution 503 I recognize myself for questioning. As you saw just a few minutes ago, the Proud Boys instigated the first breach of the Capitol just before 1:00 PM where rioters pushed over barricades near the peace circle at the foot of the Capitol. Our two witnesses tonight were both there at the time of that first breach. Officer Edwards was standing with other officers behind a line of bike racks that marked the perimeter of the Capitol grounds. She bravely tried to prevent an angry crowd from advancing on the Capitol. 

Unfortunately, she was overrun and knocked unconscious as the crowd advanced on the Capitol. Mr. Quested was a few yards away from Officer Edwards taking footage of the Proud Boys as part of his work on a documentary film. Most of his footage has never been shown publicly before we shared it this evening. Off — Officer Edwards, I’d like to start by asking if you could tell us why you believe it’s important for you to share your story this evening with the committee and the American public. Please, your microphone. 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: Well thank you, Mr. Chairman. I — I really appreciate it. And thank you to the committee for having me here to testify. I was called a lot of things on January 6th, 2021 and the days thereafter. I was called Nancy Pelosi’s dog, called incompetent, called a hero and a villain. I was called a traitor to my country, my oath, and my constitution. In actuality, I was none of those things. I was an American standing face to face with other Americans asking myself how many times — many, many times how we had gotten here. I had been called names before, but never had my patriotism or duty been called into question. I, who got up every day no matter how early the hour or how late I got in the night before, to put on my uniform and to protect America’s symbol of democracy. 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: I who spent countless hours in the baking sun and freezing snow to make sure that America’s elected officials were able to do their job. I whose literal, blood, sweat, and tears were shed that day defending the building that I spent countless holidays and weekends working in. I am the proud granddaughter of a marine that fought in the Battle of the Chosen Reservoir in the Korean War. I think of my papa often in these days, how he was so young and thrown into a battle he never saw coming, and answered the call at a great personal cost. 

How he lived the rest of his days with bullets and shrapnel in his legs, but never once complained about his sacrifice. I would like to think that he would be proud of me. Proud of his granddaughter that stood her ground that day and continued fighting even though she was wounded like he did many years ago. I am my grandfather’s granddaughter. Proud to put on a uniform and serve my country. They dared to question my honor. They dared to question my loyalty. And they dared to question my duty. I’m a proud American and I will gladly sacrifice everything to make sure that the America, my grandfather defended is here for many years to come. Thank you. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Officer Edwards, your story and your service is important. And I thank you for being here tonight. Mr. Quested, I’ll also like to ask you to introduce yourself. Can you tell us how you found yourself in Washington DC on January 6th, 2021? 

NICK QUESTED: Good evening Chair and Madam Vice Chair. Thank you for the introduction. As stated, in the winter of 2020, I was working on a documentary. As part of that documentary I filmed several rallies in Washington DC on December the 11th and December the 12th and I learned there would be a rally on the Mall and — on January 6th. So my three colleagues and I came down to document the rally. According to the permit, the event there was going to be a rally at the Ellipse. 

We arrived at the Mall and observed a large contingent of Proud Boys marching towards the Capitol. We filmed them and almost immediately I was separated from my colleagues. I documented the crowd turn from protesters to rioters to insurrectionists. I was surprised at the size of the group, the anger, and the profanity. And for anyone who didn’t understand how violent that event was, I saw it, I documented it, and I experienced it. I heard incredibly aggressive chanting and I shared — subsequently shared that footage with the authorities. I’m here today pursuant to a House subpoena. Thank you so much. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Quested. The Select Committee has conducted extensive investigative work to understand what led the proud boys and other rioters to the Capitol on January 6th. We’ve obtained substantial evidence showing that the President’s December 19th tweet, calling his followers to Washington DC on January 6th, energized individuals from the Proud Boys and others extremist groups. I’d like to play a brief video highlighting some of this evidence. 

[Begin Videotape] MARCUS CHILDRESS: My name is Marcus Childress and I’m an investigative counsel for the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. DONALD TRUMP: What do you want to call him? Give me a name. [crosstalk] Stand back and stand by — 

MARCUS CHILDRESS: After he made this comment, Enrique Tarrio, then chairman of the Proud Boys, said on Parler, “Standing by sir”. During our investigation, we learned that this comment during the Presidential debate actually led to an increase in membership in the Proud Boys. 

UNKNOWN: Would you say that Proud Boys numbers increased after the stand back, stand by comment? 

JEREMY BERTINO: Exponentially. I’d say tripled probably. 

UNKNOWN: With the potential for a lot more eventually. 

CANDYCE PHOENIX: And did you ever sell any stand back and stand by merchandise? 

ENRIQUE TARRIO: Uh, one of the vendors on my page actually beat me to it, but I wish I would have — I wish I would have made a stand back, stand by shirt. 

MARCUS CHILDRESS: On December 19th, President Trump tweeted about the January 6th rally and told attendees, be there, will be wild. Many of the witnesses that we interviewed were inspired by the President’s call and came to DC for January 6th, but the extremists, they took it a step further. They viewed this tweet as a call to arms. A day later the Department of Justice describes how the Proud Boys created a chat called the Ministry of Self-defense Leadership Chat. In this chat, the Proud Boys established a command structure in anticipation of coming back to DC on January 6th. The Department of Justice describes Mr. Tarrio coming into possession of a document called the 1776 Returns, which describes individuals occupying key buildings around the United States Capitol. The Oath Keepers are another group that the committee investigated. 

UNKNOWN: You better get your ass to DC folks this Saturday. 

STEWART RHODES: If you don’t, there’s gonna be no more republic. But we’re not gonna let that happen. It’s not even if. It’s either President Trump has encouraged and bolstered strength and to do what he must do or we wind up in a bloody fight. We all know that the fight’s coming. 

MARCUS CHILDRESS: The Oath Keepers began planning to block the peaceful transfer of power shortly after the November 3rd election. And according to the Department of Justice, Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keeper’s leader said to his followers that, “we were not going to get through this without a civil war”. In response to the December 19th, 2020 tweet by President Trump, the Oath Keepers focused on January 6th in Washington DC. In response to the tweet, one member of the President of the Florida chapter put on social media, the President called us to the Capitol, he wants us to make it wild. The goal was for the Oath Keepers to be called to duty so that they could keep the President in power although President Trump had just lost the election. The committee learned that the Oath Keepers set up quick reaction forces outside of the city and Virginia where they stored arms. The goal of these quick reaction forces was to be on standby just in case President Trump invoked the Insurrection Act. 

UNKNOWN: Did the Oath Keepers ever provide weapons to members? 

STEWART RHODES: I’m going to decline to answer that question and grounds — for a due process grounds. 

MARCUS CHILDRESS: In footage obtained by the committee, we learned that on the night of January 5th, Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes met in a parking garage in Washington DC. 

ENRIQUE TARRIO: There’s mutual respect there. I think we’re — we’re fighting the same fight and I think that’s what’s important. 

MARCUS CHILDRESS: The committee learned that the Oath Keepers went into the Capitol through the east doors and to stark formations. The DOJ alleges that one of the stacks went into the Capitol looking for Speaker Pelosi, although they never found her. As the attack was unfolding, Mr. Tarrio took credit. In documents obtained by the Department of Justice. Mr. Tarrio said, in an encrypted chat, “make no mistake” and “we did this”. Later on that evening, Mr. Tarrio even posted a video which seemed to resemble him in front of the Capitol with a black cape. And the title of the video was premonition. The evidence developed by the Select Committee and the Department of Justice highlights how each group participated on the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. 

UNKNOWN: In fact, the investigation revealed that it was individuals associated with the Proud Boys who instigated the initial breach at the peace circle at 12:53 p.m. [inaudible] Within 10 minutes, rioters had already filled the Lower West Plaza. [inaudible] By 2:00, rioters had reached the doors on the west and the east plazas. And by 2:13 rioters had actually broken through the Senate wing door and got into the Capitol building. [inaudible] A series of breaches followed. At 2:25 pm, rioters breached the East Side doors to the rotunda. [inaudible] And then right after 2:40 pm, rioters breached the east side doors near the Ways and Means Room. [inaudible] Once the rioters infiltrated the Capitol, they moved to the crypt, the rotunda, the hallways leading to the House chambers, and even inside the Senate chambers. [inaudible] [End Videotape] 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Individuals associated with two violent extremist groups have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6th attack. One is the Oath Keepers. They are a group of armed, antigovernment extremists. The other group is the Proud Boys. They promote white supremacist beliefs and have engaged in violence with people they view as their political enemies. Members of both groups have already pleaded guilty to crimes associated with the January 6th attack Mr. Quested, as part of the documentary you’ve been filming, you gain access to the Proud Boys and their leader, Enrique Tarrio. Your crew filmed them in Washington DC on the evening of January 5th and then on January 6th. On January 5th, the night before the attack, you were with the head of the Proud Boys, Mr. Tarrio, in Washington DC. What happened? 

NICK QUESTED: We picked up Mr. Tarrio from jail. He’d been arrested for carrying some magazines — some long — some extra capacity magazines and for the — he took responsibility for the burning of the Black Lives Matter flag that was stolen from the church on December the 12th. We — we were attempting to get an interview with Mr. Tarrio. We had no idea of any of the events that were going to subsequently happen. We drove him to pick up his bags from the property department of the police, which is just south of the Mall. We picked up his bags and went to get some other bags from the Phoenix Hotel. We encountered Mr. Stuart Rhodes from the Oath Keepers. By the time I had gone to park the car, my colleague was saying, who’d got into the car with Mr. Tarrio, that they had moved to a location around the corner, the parking garage of the Hall of Legends, I believe. And so we quickly drove over there. 

We drove down into the parking garage and filmed the scene of Mr. Tarrio and Mr. Rhodes and certain other individuals in that garage. We then continue to follow Mr. Tarrio. There was some discussion about where he was going to go. He ended up going towards a hotel in Baltimore and we conducted an interview with him in the hotel room. And then we returned to DC for that night. And a — and what was interesting that night actually was that was the first indication that DC was much more busy than it had been any other time we’ve been here because we couldn’t get into the hotels we wanted to and we ended up at a hotel that, you know, was not as satisfactory as we would have hoped. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you. So what you’re saying is you filmed the meeting between Mr. Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader, Stewart Rhodes, right? 

NICK QUESTED: Indeed. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: You couldn’t hear what was said, but according to the Justice Department indictment of Mr. Tarrio a participant referenced the Capitol. Now on the morning of January 6th, you learned the Proud Boys would gather near the rally scheduled to take place near the White House. What time did you meet up with the Proud Boys and what was happening when they met? 

NICK QUESTED: We met up with the Proud Boys somewhere around 10:30 am and they were starting to walk down the Mall, a easterly direction towards the Capitol. There was a large contingent, more than I had expected. And I was confused to a certain extent why we were walking away from the President’s speech because that’s what I felt we were there to cover. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: So at 10:30 am, that’s early in the day. That’s even before President Trump had started speaking. Am I correct? 

NICK QUESTED: Yes, sir. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: So how many Proud Boys would you estimate were marching together to the Capitol? 

NICK QUESTED: A couple of hundred. Potentially — yeah, I say a couple of hundred Proud Boys were marching towards the Capitol at that point. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: At the time was the area heavily guarded? 

NICK QUESTED: No, that was — we — I remember we walked past the — we walked down the Mall, we walked to the right of the reflecting pool and then north along the road that leads to the Peace Circle. And as we were walking past the Peace Circle, I framed the Proud Boys to the right of my shot with the Capitol behind. And we see one sole police officer at the barriers which subsequently breached. We then walk up and past a tactical unit preparing. And there’s — you see that in the film where the man questions their duty and their honor. And you see maybe a dozen Capitol police putting on their riot gear. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: So how would you describe the atmosphere at that — that time? 

NICK QUESTED: The atmosphere was — it seemed to be much darker. I — I make efforts to create a familiarity between myself and my subjects to, you know, make them feel comfortable. And the — the atmosphere was much darker on this day than had been in these other — in these other — in these other days. And there was also a contingent of Proud Boys that I hadn’t met before from Arizona who appeared to wear these orange hats. And had orange armbands. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: So when the Proud Boys went back down the Hill to the peace circle, did a larger crowd start to gather? 

NICK QUESTED: Well, no. First of all, we went round to the back and down the steps and we took some photographs on the east side of the Capitol. And then we went for lunch. We went for tacos. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: So Mr. Quested you’re a journalist, so you are careful to stick to things that you have observed. But what you’ve told us is highly relevant. Let me highlight a few key facts that you and others have provided the committee. First, there was a large group of Proud Boys present at the Capitol. We know that from multiple sources. You now estimate that there were around 250 to 300 individuals that — you’ve testified. They weren’t there for President Trump’s speech. We know this because they left that area to march toward the Capitol before the speech began. They walked around the Capitol that morning. 

I’m concerned this allowed them to see what defenses were in place and where weaknesses might be. And they decided to launch their attack at the peace — peace circle, which is a front door of the Capitol complex. It’s the first security perimeter that those marching from the ellipse would have to come to as they move toward the Capitol. The peace circle walk away was — walkway was always where the thousands of angry Trump supporters would arrive after President Trump sent them from the ellipse. The Proud Boys timed their attack to the moments before the start of the joint session in the Capitol, which is also where President Trump directed the angry mob. Quote, “We fight like hell,” end quote. He told them before sending them down Pennsylvania Avenue right to where the Proud Boys gathered and where you were filming. 

Now a central question is whether the attack on the Capitol was coordinated and planned. What you witnessed is what a coordinated and planned effort would look like. It was the culmination of a months’ long effort spearheaded by President Trump. Mr. Quested, thank you for your eyewitness account of the lead up to the breach of the peace circle. This brings us to a point in time where you and Officer Edwards were in close proximity. At this point, I reserve the balance of my time pursuant to 5c Section eight of House Resolution 503. The Chair recognizes that gentlewoman from Wyoming, Ms. Cheney, for questioning. 

LIZ CHENEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Officer Edwards I want to start by thanking you for your service and thank you for your courage. Thank you for being here this evening. I know that it’s not easy to relive what happened for you and — and for the officers behind you and for the family members of officers in — in the audience this evening. But it’s — it’s really important for the country to have a full accounting and understand what happened. I want to start Officer Edwards with a short clip that shows the horrible moment when you were injured as the peace circle was breached. 

[Begin Videotape] UNKNOWN: USA, USA, USA. Move. Move. [End Videotape] 

LIZ CHENEY: Officer Edwards, can you describe the crowd that had assembled at the peace circle as — as you and your fellow officers stood behind and guarded the bike racks at the peace circle? 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: Yes. So there were about — I want to say about five of us on that line. And there were — so there was our bike rack and then at the bottom of the Pennsylvania Avenue walkway right by peace circle there was another bike rack. And so the crowd had kind of gathered there. It was the crowd led by Joseph Biggs. And they were mostly in civilian clothes. There were some who had military fatigues on. We could see people with bulletproof vests on, you know, things like that. They didn’t seem, you know, extremely cohesive, but they had gathered there in their outfits. But they had gathered there together. 

And Joseph Biggs started. He had a mic, or a megaphone. And he started talking about, you know, first it was things kind of relating to Congress. And then the tables started turning once the — what is now that the — the Arizona group is what you said — the crowd with orange hats. They came up chanting F-U-C-K Antifa. And they joined that group. And once they joined that group, Joseph Biggs’ rhetoric turned to the Capitol Police. He started asking us questions like you’ve — you didn’t miss a paycheck during the pandemic. Mentioning stuff about our pay scale was mentioned. And, you know, started turning the tables on us. 

And I’ve worked I can, you know, conservatively say probably hundreds of civil disturbance events. I know when I’m being turned into a villain. And that’s when I turned to my Sergeant and I stated the — the understatement of the century. I said, “Sarge, I think we’re going to need a few more people down here.” And so after that, you know, I think they started conferring. They went a little silent. They started conferring among ano — each other. I saw the person now identified as Ryan Samsel. He put his arm around Joseph Biggs and they were talking. And then they started approaching the first barricade. They ripped the first barricade down and they approached our bike racks. You know, at that time We started holding on, grabbing the bike racks. You know, there weren’t many of us, so I grabbed the middle between two different bike racks. And, you know, I — I wasn’t under any pretense that I could hold it for very long. But I just wanted to, you know, make sure that we could get more people down and get our CDU units time to — to answer the call. So we started grappling over the bike racks. I felt the bike rack come on top of my head and I was pushed backwards and my foot caught the stair behind me and I — my chin hit the handrail. And then I — at that point I had blacked out. But my — the back of my head clipped the concrete stairs behind me. 

LIZ CHENEY: And you were knocked unconscious. Is that right, Officer Edwards? 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: Yes, ma’am. 

LIZ CHENEY: But then when you regained consciousness even with the injuries you returned to duty. Is that right? 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: Yes, ma’am. You know, at that time adrenaline kicked in. I ran towards the west front and I tried to hold the line at the Senate steps at the Lower West Terrace. More people kept coming at us. It just seemed like, you know, more and more people started, you know, coming on to the west front. They started overpowering us. And that was right about when MPD’s officers showed up. Their bike officers pushed the crowd back and allowed our CDU units as well as theirs to form that line that you see — that very thin line between us and the protesters or the rioters. You know, at that time. I fell behind that line and for a while I started decontaminating people who had gotten sprayed and treating people medically who — who needed it. 

LIZ CHENEY: And then you were injured again there on the west terrace. Is that right Officer Edwards? 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: Yes, ma’am. So after a while I got back on the line. I got — it was on the House side of the lower west terrace. And I was holding that line for a while. There weren’t many of us over there. And Officer Sicknick was behind me for most of the time for about 30 to 45 minutes that I was down there. We were just as the best we could we were just, you know, grappling over bike racks and trying to hold them as quick as possible. All of the sudden I see movement to the left of me. And I turned and it was Officer Sicknick with his head in his hands. And he was ghostly pale, which I — I figured at that point that he had been sprayed. And I was concerned my, you know, cop — cop alarm bells went off. Because if you get sprayed with pepper spray you’re going to turn red. He turned just about as pale as this sheet of paper. And so I looked back to see what had hit him, what had happened, and that’s when I got sprayed in the eyes as well. I was taken to be decontaminated by another officer, but we didn’t get the chance because we were then tear gassed. 

LIZ CHENEY: And we are going to play just a — a brief clip of that moment that you’ve just described, Officer Edwards. 

[Begin Videotape] [Inaudible] [End Videotape] 

Officer Edwards, I just want to thank you for being here. And — and I know again how difficult it is. I know the family of Officer Sicknick as well, who’s here tonight. And one of the things one of the Capitol police officers said to me recently was to ask me whether or not as members of Congress all of us understood that on that day, on January 6th, when we were evacuated from the chamber we’re led to a safe undisclosed location, whether we knew that — that so many of you had rushed out of the building and into the fight. And I can assure you that we do know that. And that we understand how important your service is. Thank you for your continued work with our committee and the interviews and thank you very much for both of you for being here this evening. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Thank you very much. Ms. Edwards, can you give us one memory of that awful day that stands out most vividly in your mind? 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: I can. That time when I talked about falling behind MPD’s line, I remember because I had been kind of shielded away cause I was holding those stairs, so I wasn’t able to really see what was going on over here. 

CAROLINE EDWARDS: When I fell behind that line and I saw, I can just remember my — my breath catching in my throat, because what I saw was just a — a war scene. It was something like I’d seen out of the movies. I — I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. You know, they were bleeding. They were throwing up. 

They were — you know, they had — I mean, I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. You know, I — I was catching people as they fell. I — you know, I was — it was carnage. It was chaos. I — I can’t — I can’t even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that, as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle. You know, I — I’m trained to detain, you know, a couple of subjects and — and handle — you know, handle a crowd, but I — I’m not combat trained. And that day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat, hours of dealing with things that were way beyond any — any law enforcement officer has ever trained for. And I just remember — I just remember that moment of stepping behind the line and just seeing the absolute war zone that the west front had become. 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Let me thank you for your service, and obviously your bravery that you have told the world about tonight. It’s unfortunate that you had to defend the Capitol from fellow Americans. None of us would ever think that that would have to happen, but it did. So, let me thank our witnesses for joining us tonight and sharing their experiences with America. Throughout my chairmanship of this committee, I’ve continuously vowed that this committee will ensure a comprehensive account of the heroic acts on January 6th and that we will follow the facts wherever they lead. 

Your testimony is an essential part of that record and helps us do our job. Mr. Quested, thank you for sharing your footage and your account of the day’s events with us. The images you recorded and have shared with the committee do a better job than any of our words in reinforcing the violence of January 6th. We hope that the power of your footage help encourage all Americans to consider how citizens with such — so much in common could viciously brawl at the seat of their democratic government. Officer Edwards, thank you for your brave service, as I indicated, on January 6th, and all you did to protect us and, most importantly, our democracy.

If you and your fellow officers hadn’t held the line against those violent insurrectionists, we can only imagine the disaster that would have ensued. Your heroism in the face of danger is admirable, and your will to continue to protect and serve despite your serious injuries should be an inspiration to all of us. We wish you a continued recovery, and look forward to seeing you back in uniform sometime soon. 

The members of the Select Committee may have additional questions for tonight’s witnesses, and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Without objection, members will be permitted ten business days to submit statements for the record, including opening remarks and additional questions for the witnesses. The witness have just told us what they heard the rioters saying while they stormed the Capitol on that day. Now we’re going to hear it from the rioters themselves. Without objection, I include in the record a video presentation. 

[Begin videotape] UNKNOWN: We were invited by the president of the United States. What really made me want to come was the fact that, you know, I had supported Trump all that time. I did believe, you know, that the election was being stolen. And Trump asked us to come. He personally asked for us to come to DC that day. And I thought, for everything he’s done for us, if this is the only thing he’s going to ask of me, I’ll do it. 

DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. 

UNKNOWN: Do you recall President Trump mentioning going to the Capitol during his speech? Oh, yeah. So, that’s one of my disappointments. He said he was going to go, go with us, that he was going to be there. I know why I was there, and that’s because he called me there and he laid out what is happening in our government. He laid it out. But I remember Donald Trump telling people to be there, I — I mean, to support. So, you mentioned that the president — that the president asked you. Do you remember a specific message? Basically, yeah — yes, for us to come to DC, that big things are going to happen. What got me interested, he said I have something very important to say on January 6th, or something like that is what got — what got me interested to be there. You know, Trump has only asked me for two things. He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on January 6th. [End videotape] 

BENNIE THOMPSON: Testimony & Transcripts When the committee reconvenes next week, we’re going to examine the lies that convinced those men and others to storm the Capitol to try to stop the transfer of power. We’re going to take a close look at the first part of Trump’s attack on the rule of law when he hit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of January 6th. Without objection, and with — with that, the committee stands adjourned.

Vladimir Putin is a criminally insane kleptocrat. He has been enabled in his nefarious deeds by a variety of self-serving sycophants. Many of these amassed fortunes in ways that have consistently worked to the detriment of the Russian people. And now that Putin has engaged in war crimes against an emergent democracy, his enablers are losing access to their bank accounts, they are having their yachts seized, and they are being targeted for criminal prosecution.

Unfortunately, the free world has failed at times to differentiate between the rank and file Russian people and the egomaniacal tyrants that have, by arbitrary assumption, occupied leadership positions in former Soviet states. On December the 25^th in 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. And yet, due to the ineptitude of the United Nation’s Office of Legal Counsel, Russia illegitimately occupied the former Soviet’s permanent member seat on the UN Security Council.

As Russia used its misbegotten veto power to cripple emergent democracies around the globe, it retarded societal evolution. Even though the Soviet Union ceased to exist, though the once captive socialist “republics” became independent nations functioning as emergent democracies, the anti-democracy government of Putin wielded power that was unjustified by any coherent analysis. In light of this, it’s hard to believe the United Nations is poised to remain relevant as it puts forth a variety of meaningless and toothless resolutions.

The interests of world peace are not well served by vacillating politicians. We’ve all seen them, proactively straddling the fence or deliberately staking out firm positions somewhere between wishy and washy. On the question of democracy versus autocracy, we’ve heard them say “democracy is not all it’s cracked up to be.” And yet, they are unable to articulate any vision for the future that they’re willing to share with the general population. That is because they’ve sold out to oligarchs whose values are so abhorrent, they must operate under the cover of darkness. 

Obvious solutions are ignored by incumbent politicians as well as the press. They lament the news blackout in Russia while failing to deploy an array of Radio Liberty transmitters along that country’s borders. They complain about Russia’s veto on the UN Security Council while failing to challenge it’s illegitimate permanent member status. They have their followers backbiting someone they’ve labeled as the enemy while encouraging constituents to run from something seen as the centermost bone of contention at the heart of their petty grievances.

Still, we must ask why anyone would favor autocracy unless they are somehow intent on fleecing the public. We willfully tolerate such ineptitude at the commanding heights. Although, the Russian people have no apparent alternative due to the misinformation through state media together with the inaction of those who once made effective use of Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe.

We are left with the slim hope there are officials, within the Russian military, that maintain some affinity with, and loyalty to, the Russian people. Such officials undoubtedly see through the feigned concern Vladimir Putin has for ordinary Russians. They must realize that, in the final analysis, the only thing Putin has ever done for Russia is to retard its progress while siphoning off any equities it once held. Because of Putin and his unmitigated selfishness, the country is now saddled with crushing sanctions and an insurmountable debt to Ukraine and the rest of the world. 

Any future lifting of sanctions should not occur without an equitable formula for war reparations to Ukraine. And any consideration for such relief should be contingent upon the Russian people arresting Putin and delivering him to the International Criminal Court to stand trial for war crimes. Putin should become the enduring example, for all kleptocrats and kleptocrat wannabes, that the people of the world will no longer tolerate deceptive practices by those seeking to deprive others of their livelihoods, their possessions, and their other fundamental rights. 

Beyond the commonly articulated and delineated rights, every person on earth has a divinely bestowed right to be the arbiter of their own destiny, and to associate for an altruistic purpose. Humanity has a duty to protect such benefactors and we should make a concerted effort to insure their work continues unimpeded. The Putin-like caballers fear exposure above all else. Their main enemies, in addition to physical light, are intellectual insight and spirit luminosity. Therefore they moved quickly to block social media and general access to the Internet.

Radios however are widely available. The failure to array frequency agile Radio Liberty broadcast transmitters along Russia’s borders suggests an embarrassing ineptitude. So does the UN intransigence with respect to denying Russia veto power. High officials have shown they cannot be trusted to even read the UN Charter and discover that non-Soviet Russia never was a permanent member of the Security Council. Unless the Charter is hopelessly defective, they could at least devise a method to remove those countries operating in ways that are antithetical to the organization’s cardinal precepts or, in the case of Putin’s Russia, are actively engaged in war crimes.

On February the 23^rd in 2022, Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations, issued a challenge to the governing body. He said: “Mr. Secretary-General, please instruct the secretariat to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly a decision by the Security Council dated December 1991 that recommends that the Russian Federation can be a member of this organization, as well as a decision by the General Assembly dated December 1991 where the General Assembly welcomes the Russian Federation to this organization.”

The Ambassador also said it would be a miracle if the Secretariat could produce such documentation. He knew that the Office of Legal Affairs had been playing fast and loose with the Charter after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics finally collapsed in December of 1991. An entirely new government was formed, and the Russian Federation, in clear violation of the United Nations Charter, had arbitrarily assumed the former government’s permanent member position on the Security Council. This was clearly enabled through the inattention of the UN’s Legal Counsel. While Secretary General António Guterres sat stupefied, Kyslytsya referred to Article 4, paragraph 2 of the UN Charter which reads:

“The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”

Although the Russian Federation was formed in the hope that the people of Russia would finally become the true arbiters of their own destiny, it is now a kleptocracy. It is a very different country from the onetime ally that was among the 51 countries “committed to maintaining international peace and security” when the United Nations was founded on October the 4^th in 1945. According to Oppenheim’s International Law, as it refers to the United Nations, “Permanent membership in the Security Council was granted to five states based on their importance in the aftermath of World War II.”

That was long ago. The caustic mix of autocracy, inauthentic democracy, and kleptocracy on the Security Council has rendered the UN largely impotent. It is no longer an effective champion of those governments that derive their just authority by any informed consent of the governed. And the one thing that might make a difference, that might move the UN beyond the status of a debating society, the Secretariat steadfastly refuses to do. But, the General Secretary is not the only one.

In 2022, on the February 27^th episode of CNN’s State of the Union, Linda Thomas Greenfield – the US Ambassador to the United Nations said: Russia is a member of the Security Council, that’s in the UN Charter.” With this statement, Ambassador Greenfield has exhibited a reckless indifference to the truth. In actuality the Charter, in Article 23 states:

“The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council.”

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic’s seat on the UN Security Council was never legally transferred, by any due process, to the Russian Federation. There was no Union of Soviet Socialist Republics after what the Guardian newspaper described, as “the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country in history.” The dissolution of the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991 was characterized by a process of internal political, economic and ethnic disintegration which resulted in the end of its existence as a sovereign state.

In late 1991, the leaders of three of the former Union’s founding and largest republics; the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Byelorussian SSR declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. They were later joined by eight more former Soviet republics.

The United Nations is willfully compromised. The member states, with the exception of Ukraine, have not taken any action to correct the problem/s with the Security Council. There was no recommendation by the Security Council and there was no decision by the General Assembly to “grandfather in” the Russian Federation or, for that matter, any other country that has undergone significant change since an original determination was made that it qualified for membership in an organization founded to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

Other commitments delineated in the Charter Preamble, such as the ones to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, to preserve the dignity and worth of the human person, to insure equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom are worthy objectives. The problem is that certain members of the UN Security Council have exhibited nothing but contempt for these principles. The UN is defining itself every day through its sincerity or a lack thereof.

While Russia’s leader may surround himself with tacticians, he is by no means a strategist. There is no such thing as a coherent strategy in the absence of a coherent value proposition. And likewise, tactics seldom lead to meaningful victory when divorced from strategic thought. Like so many other kleptocrats, Vladimir Putin is willing to sink his own country for personal gain. His only motivation is one of self-gratification. He has no real vision for the future of Russia other than to siphon off any remaining equities from its people and to try and recapture past glories.

His terminal ego is looking to re-acquire former Soviet states that have intentionally moved on. He was late to the game in developing a focus on rare earth minerals, instead doubling down on fuels the rest of the world is actively working to phase out. And, he conducts himself in ways that have made him a pariah within the evolving world order. He’s not fooling anyone beyond those whose political discourse is fed exclusively by his state owned media.

Vladimir Putin surrounds himself with yes-men. And those who would keep him honest are Novichok’d, imprisoned, or otherwise marginalized in punitive ways. He has enriched himself at the the expense of the Russian people and plans to siphon the life plasm out of Ukraine in similar ways. The invasion of troops is just a precursor to an invasion by his wholly owned and operated oligarchs. And the outrage expressed by other world leaders only serves to underscore the impotence of the United Nations.

If the UN is unable to purify the body, through the removal of a war-mongering tyrant from the Security Council, than it is unable to hold the mantle as a champion of peace. Unlike the UN, NATO has the option to re-charter in ways that would get it out from under the limitations imposed by the Security Council. Within the UN, Putin can veto any resolution that would put his ego in check. The Security Council is an outmoded relic that may have been justified in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Today, it makes no sense at all. It gives an elevated platform and excessive prominence to those illegitimate leaders that hold power in their home countries, by arbitrary assumption, rather than by popular vote.

John Wycliffe, in the preface to his Fourteenth Century translation wrote: “The Bible is for Government of, by, and for the people.” As inauthentic republics and democracies come down somewhere between wishy and washy with respect to this principle, the world is largely without leadership and politics has eclipsed statesmanship.

This is the question that Putin has thrust upon the entire world. Will we continue to recognize tyrants, from inauthentic democracies, as heads of state? Or will we only recognize governments that are authentic democratic republics? The time for proactively straddling the fence is over. Sanctions that hurt Russian citizens rather than Vladimir Putin and his sycophants, are of limited value.

If Putin wants to recapture the “glory days,” when the Soviet Government was the focus of evil, than we should get focused on the individual that has defined himself as the real enemy. As one might expect, Putin’s value’s are so abhorrent that he must operate under the cover of darkness, suppressing anything that might give the people of Russia a government that derives its authority from informed consent.

On May the 14^th in 2021, the government of Russia designated Radio Liberty’s website as a “foreign agent”. The broadcast service’s bank accounts were frozen. The Russian mass media regulator initiated 520 cases against the broadcaster with total fines for the its refusal to mark its content with the “foreign agent” label estimated at $2.4 million. On May the 19^th in 2021, Radio Liberty filed a legal case at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the Russian government of violating freedom of expression and freedom of the media.

It is clear that Putin will not benefit from any close examination of the truth. He fears Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty almost as much as he fears NATO. He knows the broadcasters played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the rise of democracies in post-communist Europe. In light of this history and Putin’s ongoing acts of war, continuous saturation broadcasts into Russia should occur in every conceivable way. Every Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty asset should be brought to bear to insure the Russian people understand just what was taken from them and how.

Putin fully intends to pillage and plunder Ukraine in similar ways. The people of that country want an of, by, and for the people Ukraine. Whereas Putin wants an all for Putin and Putin for Putin Ukraine. Putin has no value proposition that will resonate with the people of Russia or Ukraine. Accordingly, he has no vision for anything beyond his orgy of darkness and death. If the people in those countries want a future of light and life, they must be intentional and work for it.

On February 23, 2022, the Ambassador of Ukraine issued a challenge to the Secretariat of the United Nations. He was highlighting the way the Russian Federation held, by arbitrary assumption, a seat on the United Nations Security Council after the demise of the Soviet Union. Such short circuiting of due process, within the United Nations, has enabled Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy to use its illegitimate veto power to quash any effort to insure world peace. In the long run, it may also point to a potential cure for the UN’s impotence.

Partial Transcript:

I would like to avail the presence of the secretary-general and request the secretary-general to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly the legal memos by the legal council of the United Nations dated December 1991, and in particular, the legal memo dated 19th of December, 1991. The one that we’ve been trying to get out of the secretariat for a very long time and were denied to get it.

The Article 4, paragraph 2 of the charter reads:

The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Mr. Secretary-General, please instruct the secretariat to distribute among the members of the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly a decision by the Security Council dated December 1991 that recommends that the Russian Federation can be a member of this organization, as well as a decision by the General Assembly dated December 1991 where the General Assembly welcomes the Russian Federation to this organization.

It would be a miracle if the secretariat is able to produce such decisions.

There is nothing in the Charter of the United Nations about continuity, as a sneaky way to get into the organization.

In Washington D.C. on April the 4^th in 1949, the 12 founding members of NATO signed what became known as The North Atlantic Treaty. The agreement is short. It contained only 14 articles each characterized by internal flexibility. The treaty was founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. The signatories were determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of their people. 

In Article 1, the parties committed “to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” The Parties to the Treaty reaffirmed their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.

To effect this peace initiative, Article 2 and 4 encourage the members to “consult together” whenever they might consider it necessary. This process of consensus-building was to include the practice of regularly exchanging information and consulting together, to strengthen the links between governments and share knowledge of their respective preoccupations, so that they can agree on common policies and take action.

In 1949, the primary aim of the Treaty was to create a pact of mutual assistance to counter the risk that the Soviet Union would seek to extend its control of Eastern Europe to other parts of the continent. According to Theodore C. Achilles, there was no doubt that operations could be conducted worldwide. This interpretation was reaffirmed by NATO foreign ministers in Reykjavik in May of 2002 as they considered the fight against terrorism. They said: “To carry out the full range of its missions, NATO must be able to field forces that can move quickly to wherever they are needed, sustain operations over distance and time, and achieve their objectives.”

Some drafters were informed by the post-mortem New York Times reporter Clarence K. Striet published about the League of Nations. They also were influenced by his 1939 book Union Now which advocated for a federation of democracies. They wanted more than just military cooperation between signatories. They wanted to expand the organization’s influence to social and economic cooperation. 

The criteria for membership includes “a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutions.”

Because collective defense was at the very heart of the Alliance, the drafters considered the strategic value of extending invitations to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Iceland and the Scandinavian countries. The alliance committed each member to share the risk, responsibilities and benefits of such mutual aid while promoting a spirit of solidarity.

The United States and the United Kingdom saw NATO as a regional organization while France thought it should take on a more global role. The negotiators had a difference of opinion concerning the area of responsibility although the geographical scope of the Alliance was partly conditioned on situations involving those countries that were more likely to fall to Soviet aggression. Sweden refused to have any links with NATO because of its strong commitment to neutrality.

In addition to the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the founding members in 1949 included Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, and Portugal. Greece and Turkey joined the Alliance in 1952. The drafters considered offering membership to Ireland, Iran, Austria and Spain, but the idea was dropped largely due to internal conditions in each country. Of concern to all was Germany, whose membership was not immediately considered due to the complexity of its internal situation. All member countries have joined freely in accordance with their domestic democratic processes.

And this brings us to the immediate situation. We must ask why Vladimir Putin objects so strenuously to NATO membership for any of the former Soviet states. NATO, with it’s commitment to consensus building in the interest of peace is not a threat to the Russian Federation. Authentic democracies don’t attack their neighbors. In Article 1, the parties committed “to settle any international dispute by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered.”

A functioning democratic political system based on a market economy is still part of the criteria for membership in NATO. The founding parties affirmed their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. The real problem for Putin and Xi is that there is no veto power for authoritarians such as that which exists on the UN Security Council. They know that NATO will likely be a greater force, for the extension of democracy worldwide, than the UN could ever be due to the veto power of totalitarian states that are represented by inauthentic leaders. At some point, in the evolution of this planet, the only heads of state will be those who are elected to a government truly of, by, and for the people.

Alexei Navalny is the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the leader of a party for Russia of the Future. Earlier, he was a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member. In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in serious condition after he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He was medically evacuated to Berlin and discharged a month later. Navalny accused Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB).

Navalny’s investigation into President Vladimir Putin’s alleged $1.3 billion palace was the most popular video on Russian YouTube in 2021 after he was detained upon his January return from Germany. Navalny’s team released an in-depth investigation alleging that Putin and his close associates laundered money to build the opulent Black Sea palace. By the end of 2021, it had been viewed over 119 million times.

The struggle between the the players and the owners within the USA’s National Football League is hardly unique within our country’s great economic divide. And, as similar struggles within major league baseball discount the interests of host cities that actively and financially courted teams, such marginalized stakeholders continue to eat major losses. Few citizens are sympathetic to the millionaire players or their team’s billionaire owners. Although, in the grand scheme of things and from the player’s perspective, these are games for the young. It is understandable that an individual athlete would charge a premium for their best years in the context of a career that is relatively short.

On August the 19^th in 2019, the Business Roundtable released what they billed as a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. It was signed by 181 CEOs. Those executives made a commitment to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. As the wealth of these executives and their companies continued to accrue throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, employees were unceremoniously dismissed. The feigned sincerity of the Business Roundtable leadership was, and still is, correctly perceived as a public relations head fake.

Any democratic republic that aspires to authenticity, while failing to address corporate subterfuge, is chasing a conceptual illusion. An authentic corporation is composed of people associating for a common purpose and acting corporately. The Roundtable’s attempt to obfuscate, with insincere proclamations, is designed to forestall any return to a true balance of stakeholder interests. Employee Owned Benefit Corporations represent the only path forward to building authentic democracies. They are the hope for building a global federation of democracies with tremendous potential for advancing world peace.

When a union of authentic democracies commits to democracy world wide, it will align its policies to that end. In trade, the most favored nation status will be keyed to the authenticity of whatever democracy is trying to peddle its product in the global marketplace. Only those leaders that were elected through the actual consent of the governed will be recognized as true heads of state. And, any leader committing an act of war upon any nation, will automatically become target number one for international armed forces.

As our planet evolves, sentient beings are looking for the kind of work that will help us transition from purely profit motivated labors to ones that balance profit imperatives with those endeavors that may be of service to a greater humanity. The entrepreneurial spirit, that activates a nation’s workforce, is always enhanced when the work is seen as purposeful in ways that go beyond transactional forms of remuneration. Benefit corporations appeal to a worker’s motivations yielding true job satisfaction. Companies that only enrich the inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth do not inspire. The worker’s paycheck represents fleeting gratification at best.

Of course, there is no guarantee that a Benefit Corporation would not be re-chartered to become exclusively profit seeking, once outside investors gain a majority interest and install malleable managers. There is also nothing to prevent the majority of employees, within an employee owned corporation, to sell the whole enchilada to a well positioned buyer. It is the combination of an ownership stake and a commitment to providing a public benefit that has the potential to stabilize an organization that is truly integrity centered.

While the United States Supreme Court’s series of decisions concerning corporate personhood may be attributable to either a lack of integrity or a lack of intellectual rigor, granting citizen rights that are not coupled with responsibility is undeniable folly. In the case of inauthentic corporations, the foreign ownership and subterfuge is effectively masked through the dark money politics that the Supremes have also condoned in spite of serious implications concerning any consent of the governed.

In the United States today, there is a general distrust of government institutions. And this is clearly merited just to the extent that those institutions of government are no longer seen as of, by, and for the people. Our democracy has been surreptitiously hijacked and repurposed to benefit they the select few instead of We the People. The key to correcting this is Intentional Consumerism. We should avoid doing business with any corporation that distorts our national dialog or political discourse by the use of relentless messaging through captive platforms, or through the use of dark money.

Any politician accepting dark money contributions, or supporting judges whose nominations, confirmations, and accommodations are secured through dark money, should be shown the door. We don’t need the kind of political operatives, putting a wet finger to a political wind ,while masquerading as leaders. We need true statesmanship.

In 1870, James Freeman Clark offered the only litmus test that should be used as we consider how to cast our precious votes. He said, “A politician thinks about the next election. A statesman, the next generation.” As it is with our elected representatives, so it should be with the votes we cast using our hard earned dollars. Make every vote count!

Just why is it considered criminal to yell “fire” in a movie theatre? While the applicable law within various locales is nuanced, the common thread is that people rely on the word of the screamer to their detriment. Clearly, when the screamer deliberately misleads people, in a way that is the proximate cause for crush injuries and death, they should be held accountable for such an unconditioned and unintelligent exercise use of their free speech rights.

When we were children and if we were fortunate enough to have good parents, we learned early on that when privileges are abused we can lose them. I once had a really good dog that I had named Klaatu. He was named after the interstellar policeman in a movie titled The Day the Earth Stood Still. The essential message behind that ingenious movie was the axiomatic principle that, ideally, diminishing external external restraints are linked to augmenting internal restraints.

There are people on our planet that operate in accordance with the Luciferian belief that there should be no restraints; ever. They advocate for a counterfeit form of liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled. What they push for is more properly defined as taking license rather than enjoying the gift of liberty. True liberty is always mindful of the affect any exercise of liberty would have on others. Though who have fought for liberty are fighting against tyranny that is seen, by the tyrant, as simply taking liberties.

The early Luciferian and more contemporary Goebbelian tactics are based upon the latter’s declaration that “If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.” Goebbels also said that: We shall reach our goal, when we have the power to laugh as we destroy, as we smash, whatever was sacred to us as tradition, as education, and as human affection.” Now consider that in the words of Donald Trump Junior as he addressed the Turning Point convention in December of 2021.

Junior told the crowd that the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.”

This contest between Luciferian and Jesusonian principle is now playing out in our schools, our churches, and within the halls of government. Many of the politicians who profess a faith apparently don’t believe in God’s justice. They act in ways and encourage others to act in ways that are clearly antithetical to almost everything Jesus taught and exemplified. They live by the sword, they champion unmitigated selfishness, and they seem intent on causing the little ones to stumble.

On this last point, they feign concern for the unborn while fighting against any program that would advance pre-natal care, provide supplemental nutrition assistance, support early childhood education, fund basic college education, and just about anything that might serve the highest and best interests of new generations.

They are the advocates for unbridled greed, complaining about inflation while enabling the kind of price gouging that causes it. They go a-whoring for any corporation that is willing to pay them. And this includes the ones where those our nation’s founders called “foreign potentates” have a controlling interest in the company; a company that, thanks to our addled Supremes, have unfettered free speech rights. Then the prevaricating politicians whine about foreign interference in our elections.

They rage against socialism just as their donors privatize profits while offloading the cost of doing business onto the rank and file taxpayer. Their dumbed-down interpretation of the cardinal precept “provide for the common defense,” gives them license to fight on the side of microscopic foes during a global pandemic while also gutting the nation’s economy on behalf of the military industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about. They wear their hypocrisy as a badge of distinction, in which they vest tremendous pride.

The Luciferians operate in accordance with a playbook that wasn’t written by Joseph Goebbels or his protege’s Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson or any of the other latter day prevaricators. The dystopian future they advance was made possible by Supreme Court Justices that love dark money. Their values are abhorrent. And while God covers himself in light, politicians cover themselves in lies and any other form of deception that can be brought to bear.

While the act may be ours; the consequences are God’s. There are those who will faithfully follow in the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There are others that long ago traded their witness for a masquerade. They have been actively promoting reckless indifference to the truth in ways that support the planet’s ongoing orgy of darkness and death. There will be a time when their grandchildren have blown through the money and developed some situational awareness. History will judge today’s politicians without the dollar skew.